


Tomorrow Will Be Different

by WhisperOfWarmth



Category: Reylo - Fandom, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Bad Dreams, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friendship, Friendship/Love, I Ship It, Jedi Temple, Jedi Training, References to Depression, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo - Freeform, Romantic Fluff, Young Ben Solo, Young Rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-01 08:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16761805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperOfWarmth/pseuds/WhisperOfWarmth
Summary: In truth, NOTHING gave him any sort of happy feeling anymore. He felt as though he were constantly walking around in a dream.Ben Solo has been attending Luke Skywalker’s Jedi academy for a little over 3 years. His parents had sent him away, without discussion and without choice, when they realized that their son had an unnaturally strong presence in the Force. They entrust Luke with the task of helping their quiet, serious only child with controlling his frightening gifts.But this past year, things have been changing for the worst with Ben. He’s plagued with terrifying dreams of himself becoming a monster, and that combined with his newfound discovery of his mother’s previously-kept-from-him lineage, finding out that Luke is in fact his uncle, and the fearsome Darth Vader was his grandfather, makes him question more and more whether his dreams are just folly — or a glimpse into his destined future.It seems that the only way for him to save himself ... is to end himself.But the arrival of a new student slowly threatens to change his conviction on the matter.





	1. Chapter 1

_Dear Mom,_

_First of all, I’m so sorry. You need to know that none of this is your fault._

Ben Solo paused in his writing, and sighed. He had attempted to write this letter at least ten times, now, sitting at his small bench in his hut. He hoped that Luke wouldn’t see the light of the candle coming from the hut’s flap, and take it upon himself to see what his nephew was up to. Maker knew that Luke was just as much to blame, as ...

“Blame,” Ben muttered out-loud to himself, hardly aware that he had spoken. That was a major part of what was wrong with this current letter on his table, Ben’s inability to assign blame where blame was due. In previous versions of this, he had put the blame on his father, his uncle, and, yes, on himself; but not on the one person he knew was responsible for a great deal of this: his mother.

He crumpled up the piece of parchment, and licked the tip of his quill, while preparing a fresh sheet.

_Mother,_

_This is all your fault. Yours, dad’s, and Luke’s. Why would you keep my lineage a secret from me, for so long? To protect me? You say that I’m old enough to start making important choices in life, yet you sent me to uncle Luke without giving me a say in the matter. Why would you do this to me? I’m not meant to be a Jedi! You know this, dad knows this, and Luke especially knows this. I can sense how afraid he is of me, of the dark and the hatred growing within me. He’s afraid, and I’M afraid. I’m afraid my thoughts and my desires have reached a point of no return, and I’m destined to bring nothing pain to others. Therefore I think my sacrifice is the best thing I could possibly do; to end this sham of an existence, to_

He stopped again, pressing his fingers against his temples. 

No.

This letter was too much, and it sounded much too harsh to Ben’s ears.

“Why am I writing a letter at all?”, he asked himself wearily. “Why not just do what I keep dreaming; stand on the edge of the cliff and fall unto my lightsaber?”

That was the way he intended to end it; quick, easy, and relatively painless. He had reached this decision weeks ago, after yet another vivid dream in which he slaughtered entire planets, his face hidden behind a cold metal mask, the screams of his victims echoing in his waking ears. 

Yet for some reason, he was still having trouble working up the courage to go through with it. He’d wake up each morning disappointed in himself for his lack of conviction the night before, and go about his day in a robotic haze. He ate, he participated in Luke’s training activities, he meditated ... yet nothing seemed to soothe his troubled soul, OR stop the wretched dreams.

Luke had sensed his nephews discontent several times, and he had tried to fix this, by making Ben a student-teacher to the small group of Padawans that resided at the temple. He felt it would help Ben, to feel as though he had some means of control in his life. And it had worked, for a while; Ben was good with the children, and focusing on their progress helped to pull him out of his own head for awhile. But, like everything else, that contentment had faded into the grayness of his consciousness.

He reached out and touched one of the small, leather-bound books in front of him, sighing wistfully to himself. It used to be that sitting here in his hut and copying his favorite pages of the sacred Jedi texts would give him peace. The walls of his hut were, in fact, decorated with dozens of these pasted-on pages of magic and wisdom. But the words no longer evoked any kind of feeling in Ben, they no longer gave him a flutter in his chest or brought a smile to his face.

In truth, NOTHING gave him any sort of happy feeling anymore. He felt as though he were constantly walking around in a dream. A dream in which he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t breathe, and, no matter how loudly he felt he was yelling, nobody seemed to be able to hear him scream.

Nobody, that is, except Luke.

And Luke didn’t seem to know how to handle his confused, brooding nephew.

Ben crumpled up the newest note on his table, and slowly, grudgingly laid down on his pallet on the floor. 

“Tomorrow will be different,” he said to himself, chanting the phrase over and over to himself like a prayer.

Tomorrow, would be different.  
It _had_ to be.

— -

Ben stepped out of his hut and into the early morning air, yawning and stretching his hands above his head.

He always tried to rise at least an hour before the others, so that he could exercise before it was time for morning meditation.

He was somewhat surprised, upon seeing several students already awake and talking quietly, excitedly in a cluster around Luke’s hut.

“Has something happened?”, he asked Ziir, a young man about a year younger than him.

Ziir turned to him excitedly. “Maker, Ben, you must be one heavy sleeper. Didn’t you hear all the commotion?”

“No?”

“It was wild,” supplied Denjo, another young man. “A speeder pulled up to Master Luke’s tent, and a man and a woman got out, dragging a girl by the arm. A GIRL, Ben! A real live girl! It happened so fast it was hard to get a good look at her, but her face ... it was so pretty! She —“

“Dragging her by the arm?”, Ben cut him off, somewhat impatiently. Not that he couldn’t understand Denjo’s excitement a bit; Luke’s temple consisted of about 30 other pupils, most of them boys in their teens up to Ben’s age. There were also a handful of other instructors, all men around Luke’s age. What few girl students that _were_ here, were merely children, residing in the Padawan group. But judging by the way they were talking about this new girl, she must be closer in age to them.

To confirm his theory, Ziir went on: “I saw her hips. So curvy! And her chest —“

Ben shook his head a little, letting out an exasperated sigh through his nostrils. This was another thing he internally critique Luke on: clearly, his teachings on the importance of driving out one’s base and carnal instincts in order to achieve a higher self had failed to take hold on his students.

“Why were they dragging her by the arm?”, he repeated his question patiently.

“I was listening. They told Master Luke that the girl is a ‘witch’ and she needs to be with ‘other witches’. And then they just left her! She’s been in there with Master Luke for a long time; I think he’s trying to calm her down.”

Ben felt his blood boil, at that word: “Witch.” So many in their galaxy did not understand the Force, and were afraid of it, labeling those who could use it as Witches and Wizards. He also felt a quick pang of sympathy for the girl: coming here under normal circumstances was hard enough, but to be dragged here against her will, as the boys were describing it? And then to unknowingly be dropped into a pit of hormonal young men who would likely fight each other tooth and nail just for a chance to be with her?

But quickly, harshly, he steered himself away from this path. He couldn’t afford to feel sorrow for anyone; it would be pointless.

So he turned away from the gawking students and headed towards the footpath into the forest, preparing to go on his morning run.

— -

Days later, and no one had yet seen more than a few chance glimpses of the girl. Apparently she was still recovering from the shock of being abandoned by her family, and wasn’t yet ready to mingle with the other students.

Luke had two of the boys clean out one of the older huts for her, and that was where she spent most of her time. Luke brought her in her meals, and spent a great deal of time speaking with her, trying to ease her slowly out into the open.

The other boys were obsessed with her, to a level that seemed scary even to Ben. They would find reasons to be standing in the vicinity of her hut when Luke went in, to try and see inside. They would talk endlessly about what little they saw of her, even something as insignificant as a flash of ankle, or an elbow.

Ben, however, was unmoved by any of this. He had been training his mind all week to be able to go through with his lightsaber plan, and he thought he had finally steeled himself up to actually DO it.

So one night, under the full moon, he crept out of his hut, saber fastened to his belt, and began the long, arduous trek up the steep hill that he intended to meet his end on.

The night was warm, and the air was sweet with the diverse flora that surrounded the vicinity. The stars twinkled pleasantly around the bright moon, and the nightbirds called out softly to one another as the mynocks swirled high overhead.

“Good night to die,” he said to himself, chucking. He was a bit surprised at how unafraid he was, at what he was about to do. He felt calm, and level-headed ... even a tiny bit cheerful. Halfway there he began whistling softly to himself, a spring in his step that hadn’t been present for weeks.

Standing on top of the cliff, however, was when his tune began to change. He looked down, at all the jagged tree branches and sharp rocks that his body would hit on the way down, and his courage began to falter.

“Don’t be an idiot, Ben,” he said to himself angrily. “That’s what the lightsaber is for; once you fall on it, you won’t feel anything. Stop being a gundark and just DO it already!”

“Do what?”

Ben nearly jumped out of his skin, and he had to remind himself to be mindful of his footing, as he whirled around to see who had spoken.

A girl was behind him there in the dark, sitting on the ground against the base of an old tree. The shade of the leaves prevented the moonlight from hitting the majority of her face, so Ben couldn’t really get an idea of what she looked like. All he could make out was pale skin, and dark hair.

“Who are you?”, he demanded, somewhat gruffly, embarrassed that she had been able to startle him so.

“Who are YOU?”

He walked away from the edge of the cliff and went towards her, arms folded across his chest. “I asked you first.”

Sighing, the girl stood up, and Ben noted with amusement that she was much shorter than he was; she barely came up to his chest.

“Rey. My name is Rey. Are you one of Master Luke’s students?”

Ben nodded. “Yes. I’m his nephew Ben.”

“Oh, YOU’RE Ben? Your uncle talks about you all the time.”

Before Ben could ask WHAT his uncle said about him, Rey continued: “What are you doing out here, alone? In the dark? On the edge of the cliff?”

Scowling, Ben shot back: “I could ask YOU the same thing.”

Rey sat back down beside her tree with a thump. She pulled the hood of her robe up until it nearly covered her eyes, hiding her face even more. “I had to get away,” she said, her hands playing with the fringe of her hood, “I couldn’t take the ... the tingles anymore.”

Ben slowly sat himself down across from her, cross-legged. “Tingles?”

“Yes, the tingles,” she said, running her tiny hands along her arms for emphasis. “It’s like, a feeling in the brain, but it creeps out all over the skin. I feel it in my hut, with everyone around me.”

Ben grinned a little, in memory. “That’s your Force sensitivity,” he explained to her. “You’re feeling the connection between yourself, and others who are sensitive. It can be really strong, especially when it’s new. I’m guessing you’ve never been around others like this before?”

“No. Not like this.”

“Well, don’t worry, Luke can teach you to tune it out.”

“Is he a good teacher, Luke?”

Ben thought about it. His immediate answer would have been no, as he felt that Luke had failed him as a teacher. But he didn’t want to scare her off, as clearly she had no where else to go.

“He is. He’s very patient, and really smart. Sometimes he gets boring if he talks too long about one subject, but it’s not so bad.”

She nodded, then she looked up at him curiously. “Alright, I’ve told you why I’m out here. Now it’s your turn.”

“I, uh, well ... I was taking a walk.”

“But you were standing on the —“

“It’s a nice view, below,” he supplied quickly, hoping she would drop the subject. 

But now she was standing up and walking past him, to the cliff. “Really? I want to see!”

He leapt up after her and grabbed her wrist, and without giving much thought to it, he yanked her, hard, backwards. He gasped; touching her skin felt like touching a live wire. It was as though a powerful jolt of electricity had shot through his body, rendering his senses obsolete for a few bare seconds. 

Had she felt that, too?

She cried out and then snatched her arm away, holding her wrist with her other hand.

“Are you crazy?!”

“Are YOU? That’s DANGEROUS, Rey!”

“Then why were you —“

“Never mind why I’m doing what I’m doing!”, he shouted; but then, thinking that he was likely scaring her, he reigned himself in.

“Er, look, I’m sorry. It’s late, and neither one of us should be wandering around like this. Let me walk you back to your hut, okay?”

She bit her lip and nodded, and the two began the long walk back to the temple. Ben could feel her tension, so he made conversation with her, to ease some of it.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 17. You?”

“19. Where are you from?”

“Jakku.”

“Jakku? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before. Where is it?”

Rey laughed a little. “Picture, the middle of nowhere. A lone spot in the galaxy with one dusty sand planet circling a hot sun. THAT’S where Jakku is.”

“Sounds really boring,” he commented; and then, again with no forethought, “You must be glad to be away from there.”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, sarcasm oozing from her voice, “I’m SO happy to be so far away from everything that I knew and loved, to be here, learning how to be a witch.”

Ben waited a beat, then said, softly, “You shouldn’t say that, you shouldn’t say that word. You’re not a witch, you have a very special gift. Your parents — er, well, some people in your life might not understand that gift, because it’s strange and people don’t always understand strange things. But you’re among people who DO understand, now. Okay?”

They had reached the outskirts of the temple, and they lowered their voices significantly to compensate for being around the sleep-huts.

“Thank you, Ben. That makes me feel a little better.”, she said, and then, in a light teasing tone of voice, “You’re not at all like Master Luke said you would be.”

They were outside of her hut now, and he frowned. 

“What did he say about me?”

“He said that you were smart, but really moody. He told me not to take it personally if you didn’t speak to me, once we finally met.”

Ben gave her a crooked half-smile. “Alright, I suppose that’s a fair assessment of me.”

She lifted up her hands and pulled back her hood. This was the first time that he was getting a really clear view of her face, with the moonlight shining directly on it. She had a small, pointed nose, lush pink lips, and gorgeous hazel eyes. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Ben thought he could detect a very light scatter of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her hair was a warm brown, half of it pulled into a small bun, the other half laying gentle over her shoulders.

“Have I got something on my face?”

“N-no.”

“You’re staring.”

“Am I?”, Ben responded, and felt his own face turn slightly red, in a blush. What WAS he ‘staring’ at? He couldn’t help but sigh to himself, feeling a bit frustrated. This ... this girl, however nice she may be, had interrupted his appointment with the cliff. 

“Tomorrow night for sure,” he muttered to himself, scrubbing his hand wearily across his jaw.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. Goodnight, Rey.”

“Goodnight,” she replied, turning towards her hut. She had one hand on the entrance, when she shifted slightly on her left foot, half-facing him. “Ben?”

“Yes?”

“If ... if I decide I’m ready to go to lessons in the morning ... will I see you at them?”

“I’ll be at morning meditations, but after that Luke usually has me teaching the Padawans.”

She nodded. “Alright,” she said, and slipped into her hut without another word. 

Ben went to his own hut and laid down on his pallet. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Ben was late in waking up. Seeing that he wouldn’t have enough time to go for his run before meditation, he simply dressed himself, splashing his face with a little water from the bowl, and stepped out into the sunshine. He flinched a little, as he nearly ran into Sartaim who was standing there and waiting on him.

“Ben Solo, you sly nerfherder,” he said, grinning and clapping his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“Huh?”

“Ziir just told me the news. I have to say, I’m jealous. And impressed.”

“Of—?”

At that moment, Denjo came up, clapping a hand on Ben’s other shoulder. “Don’t be so modest, Ben. Ziir told us all about it; he said he was up late last night, and saw you walking out of the forest with the new girl.”

“So what?”

Ziir came out of the temple and spotted the group, waving as he ran over.

“Ben! How in the 7 hells of Corellia are you this morning?”

“Ziir, what the kriff? Why are you telling people that you saw me and Rey? Who _cares_?”

“Rey, huh? That’s pretty. And, come on, everyone cares! We’ve all been dying to even see the girl’s face, and here you are just walking around in the open with her. _Alone_.”

Ben could feel it, the slow, raw flow of anger starting to bubble up in his blood, and he clenched his fists, trying desperately to control it.

“Nothing happened,” he told the group, slowly. “Not like what you’re thinking. She’s new here, she was out walking. I was out walking, and we ran into each other. I walked her back here. That’s _it_.”

Luke emerged from the temple door, ringing the small bell that he used to summon his students for meditation. The young ones all flocked from their huts, the older ones bringing up pace behind them. Ben and the three other boys began to walk over, as well, and Ziir said,

“That’s it? Well that’s a wasted opportunity, Ben. If **I** had that girl alone in the dark —“

Ben felt his fist clench again, and was a mere few seconds from swinging it into Ziir’s face, when a pressure on his shoulder stopped him.

He turned.  
It was Rey.

“Good morning, Ben,” she said, somewhat self-conscious as the others’ eyes practically fell out of their heads, staring at her.

“Good morning, Rey,” he said, calmly. “Are you coming with to morning meditation?”

She nodded and smiled. On her opposite side, Denjo loudly cleared his throat, looking pointedly at Ben.

“Oh. Rey, this is Denjo, and Ziir, and Sartaim,” he introduced them, one at a time. Each bowed their heads and called her “Mi’lady”; and Ziir went so far as to kiss her small hand, making her blush.

Even if Ben hadn’t heard it in their thoughts, he could read it clearly in their eyes: each of them was feverishly plotting, trying to think of a way to get Rey to sit next to them for meditation. So when they got inside, Ben put his hand lightly under Rey’s elbow, and guided her to the back corner of the room where he always sat. He could feel the frustrated eyes of the others on him, but he didn’t care.

He was also more than a bit confused, with himself. It wasn’t like him, to concern himself with what other people did. And it was only the second day into knowing the girl, but he already felt such a strong urge to ... to protect her. 

He spent all of meditation thinking about it, trying to figure himself out.

_Why am I wasting my time with this? You’ve got bigger things to worry about, Ben. Last night at the cliff proved that you’re an even bigger coward than I’d thought. There’s no way you’ll be able to jump, when the time comes. So what now? You can’t put this off much longer; the dreams are getting worse._

And last night’s dream HAD been a hellish one. In it, he had a bright red lightsaber, a sword with three blades rather than one. He had been going around to each hut, sneaking in and striking down all the other students in their sleep. Their blood bathed him completely, their terrified screams reverberating around the still, heavy air. When he reached Luke’s hut, the old man wasn’t there. He searched for him, and finally found him creeping into Ben’s old hut. He followed him in, and gazed on in horror: he saw himself laying on his pallet, tossing and turning. He saw Luke standing over him and watching, an indescribable look on his face. And then Luke ignited his green saber, raised the blade high above his nephews head, and —

Ben snapped himself out of his thoughts, as he saw that his uncle had called an end to meditation. He began delving out assignments for the day, sending some students to the training grounds, others into the classrooms of the temple. 

Finally, he walked over to where Ben and Rey sat.

“My dear,” he said gently to Rey, taking both of her hands. “I’m so pleased that you’ve decided to join us!”

She smiled and nodded, and he released her hands, glancing at his nephew.

“I see you’ve already met Ben.”

“Yes, Master Skywalker.”

He began talking to Rey about what he wanted to do that day, which was a base assessment of her physical and mental skill level. After seeing her ability, he would then design a lesson plan for her. Ben stood up, preparing to go to the Padawans.

“Have a good day, Rey. Master Skywalker,” he said, nodding to them both. He always referred to Luke as Master, rather than Uncle, when around other people. 

“Will I see you later?”, Rey asked, somewhat anxiously. Before Ben could answer, Luke answered for him:

“I keep Ben engaged most of the day training my youngest students. The rest of the time he indulges in personal activities and meditation.”

“Oh,” Rey said, looking disappointed. For some reason, the expression on her face set off a bright, unfamiliar spark of feeling in Ben’s chest, and, before Luke could interrupt again, he rushed out,

“You might see me at evening meal.”

Luke tilted his head at that, looking curiously at his nephew. “Evening meal? I haven’t seen you at evening meal in _weeks_ , Ben.”

And this was true. Ben, when he was hungry at all, preferred to take his meals alone, either in his hut or on the outskirts of the temple.

Rather than say this, though, he simply repeated to Rey that she might see him later, and left.

— -

“What about Jena?”

“Jena has improved significantly since last week. In fact, today her score was the highest in the combat simulator. She’s learning to control her fear, and to start reacting to instinct rather than thought.”

Luke nodded, leaning back in his chair and yawning.

It was later in the afternoon, about an hour before dinner. Luke had called Ben into his office chambers to discuss the weekly progress of Ben’s Padawan group. Ben always felt strange, and somewhat uncomfortable, when completely alone with his uncle. Part of this feeling was mistrust. Before the talk that Ben had had with his mother regarding his family, he had had no clue that Skywalker was his uncle, Leia’s brother. But Luke HAD known, and had kept it a secret from his nephew at his sister’s request. Ben had never fully gotten over that, and the closeness and comradeship he had once felt for the old Jedi had been severely disrupted. So when they were alone, like now, Ben tried to keep it purely professional between them.

“If there’s nothing else, Master ...”

Luke sat up and waved his nephew back down, as Ben had been standing and preparing to leave.

“There is, actually. What about YOU, Ben?”

“Pardon?”

“You. What about you? How are YOU doing this week? It’s been so busy I haven’t really had a chance to ask.”

Ben fidgeted in his seat uncomfortably. “I’m ... I’m fine, Master.”

“You’re sure?”, Luke asked, searching Ben’s face. “Earlier today, during meditation, I felt like you were ... well, conflicted, over something.”

When Ben didn’t respond, Luke leaned forward and said, in a softer tone, “You know that you can tell me things, right? That you can trust me?”

Ben’s head snapped up at that, at the word ‘trust’. His entire demeanor changed, his eyes spitting out hateful fire. It lasted just a few moments, before Ben was able to control it and hide it, but those few moments had been enough. He could see it, the fear that had leapt into Luke. 

Ben’s face had gone back to normal, but that heavy feeling was still swimming all around them. Ben cleared his throat and forced his way through the fog, saying, “Of course, Master. But I’m fine. May I be excused?”

Luke nodded, that worry still lingering in his eyes. “Very well,” he said, softly. “I have some things to do here, so I won’t make it to evening meal. If you end up going, please ask the droid to bring me a plate here when it gets a chance.”

Ben nodded and left, walking out into the hall. He made his way down the temple walls to the small room that served as a dining area for the students. He paused and looked in through the doorways window; most everybody was in here already, sitting at one of the small stone tables, eating whatever fruit and moss-based concoction the droid had come up with this evening.

Glancing around, he spotted Rey sitting in the center of the room. Not surprisingly, her table was the most crowded, as it had every young man over the age of 14 grouped around it, trying to make conversation with the girl. She was smiling and speaking to everyone in turn.

 _She’s adjusting well,_ Ben thought to himself as he watched her. _That’s good; maybe now it won’t matter if I don’t take my evening meal in here._

He started to turn away, then remembered that Luke had requested he speak to the droid. So he sighed and pushed open the door, heading quickly into the kitchen. He hadn’t thought anyone had seen him, as the children kept to themselves and the other boys kept to Rey, but apparently, someone had.

As he was walking out of the kitchen door, he nearly ran straight into the person in question.

“Ben! You came!”

Ben nodded. “I said that I would, didn’t I?”

“Well, yes, but I asked the other boys and they told me that you never come in here.”

Ben glanced at her table; everyone was staring at the two of them, all but frothing for Rey to come back. 

“Looks like you’d have had someone to talk to, regardless,” he said, as he picked up a plate from the serving droid. He wasn’t sure what this was, exactly, but he knew it would likely give him a stomach ache later. Luke had all of his students on a strict vegetarian diet, and Ben was still having difficulty adjusting to this. He was a meat-eater, like his father.

Rey looked at her table as well. “Everyone is being very nice to me. So I try to be nice back. But —“, she said, lowering her voice, “Sometimes big crowds of people make me feel scared. Or maybe that’s not the word, maybe it’s ‘anxious’.”

Ben nodded and sat down at one of the farthest tables. “Me, too,” he confessed, as he set down his plate. “Tell you what; how about, you sit with me here? We can talk for a while.”

She nodded eagerly. “I’d like that,” she said, “But I don’t want anyone to think I’m being rude.”

“Hang on a second,” he said, getting back up. He crossed the room over to where the group was waiting, picked up Rey’s plate of food. 

“Master Skywalker has some things he needs me to discuss with Rey, about her training,” he lied, fighting to keep the smirk off his face. “So I’d appreciate everyone giving us a little space.”

Most of the group nodded docilely; Ben was somebody that commanded respect among his peers. Besides being the oldest student there, as well as student-teacher to the Padawans, there was no denying that his Force abilities were the strongest among any of them, second only to Master Luke’s. They respected him, but still, those ‘closest’ to him ...

“Force, Ben, you’re a moof-milker. You don’t show up in here for weeks, then you randomly pop up for no reason other than to steal the only source of entertainment any of us has had in months!”, Denjo told him with a scowl.

“Entertainment? All of you are in strict violation of the Jedi Code, are you aware of that?”, he asked, somewhat more harshly than he’d intended. “Feelings and displays of attachment and romance are expressly forbidden, as I’m sure you ALL know. If I thought any single one of you was reaching out to Rey with the purest of _friendly_ intentions .... but you’re not, are you?”

Everyone looked down at their plates in shame, the truth of his words hitting home for them. He could feel the younger ones reprimanding themselves, and a few of the older ones were scared that he might speak of their transgressions to Master Skywalker. He turned away, but as he went, Ziir said behind him, softly,

“And what about YOU, Ben? What are YOUR intentions? Are they really ‘just friendly’?”

“Yes. They are.”

Ziir got up with his empty plate, to take into the kitchen. “Whatever you say, Solo. Enjoy your meal,”; and with that, he stalked past Ben to the kitchen.

Ben watched him go, then shook his head as he returned to Rey.

The girl he was being friendly to.  
 _Friend_ ly.

— -

Three nights later, and Ben was sitting on his pallet, staring at the little capsule in his hand, trying to calm his breathing.

Two days ago, the temple had received its weekly food shipment of fresh fruits and water. For weeks Ben has been forging a friendliness with one of the delivery men, a rather shady individual named Horman. He was short, thin in the extreme, and often in some stage of sickness. He carried around with him a plethora of tonics, potions, and homemade medicines, to fight off the evil diseases that seemed to run rampant within him.

Two nights ago, Ben had casually mentioned to him that he felt sick, and thought he was coming down with a chest sickness. Horman immediately procured for him a little pill, made up of crushed spices, nectar ... and a high concentration of circa-berries.

Ben was allergic to circa-berries. He had found this out during a camping trip with his father and his Wookiee ‘uncle’, Chewbacca, when he was a boy. Ben had spent hours going around the wilderness collecting berries, but as soon as he’d brought them back to camp and popped a handful into his mouth, the trouble began. 

He hadn’t been able to breath, the berries closing up his throat faster than he’d had time to react. His skin broke out in bright angst blotches, and all of his senses went numb.

Luckily at the time, C-3PO had been with them, and had administered quick treatment to save his life.

But now —

“That golden nuisance isn’t here to stop this tonight, is he?”, he asked himself quietly, before uttering a rusty little chuckle. He felt much more nervous about taking this pill than he had about jumping off the cliff, but he tried not to let any of that bother him. His dream last night had actually caused him to wake up screaming, and more and more lately, he had the sense that his dark destiny was inevitable, and getting closer by the second.

Time to end this.

He was just about to put the pill on his tongue, his fingers precariously close to his mouth, when a light tapping on the side of his hut caused him to jump a little.

“Yes?”

“Ben? May I come in?”

Ben scrambler to straighten up his pallet, and hide the pill underneath one of the rocks on the floor. When he finally opened his door, Rey was standing there, looking rather upset.

He took her arm and pulled her inside.

“What’s wrong?!”

She sniffed and sat down on his little stool by his desk. She was using her long sleeves to wipe tears from her eyes, and brushing loose strands of hair from her face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. Did I wake you?”

“Never mind ME; what’s happened? Are you hurt? Are you sick? Are —“

“I just ... I’m just so —“, she began, and suddenly burst into loud sobs. Ben was alarmed; he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen somebody let out emotions like this. He and everybody around him had been training to keep them inside, after all. He was at a loss for what to do, or how to even begin giving comfort.

Should he tell her to pull herself together?  
Should he yell?  
Did she need water? Should he get Luke?

In the end, he settled for cautiously reaching out, and patting her shoulder.

“There, there. It’s alright,” he said, awkwardly. “It’s going to be okay.”

He got up and found her some tissues, which she took gratefully. After blowing her nose several times, she said, shakily,

“I just can’t believe they didn’t come.”

And Ben knew what she meant by that.

Earlier that day, the parents of the students had come to the school for visiting day. Luke had shunned the Jedi rule of old, mandating that students be cut off from their families. He felt his students would grow better, and _adjust_ better, if they could still interact with their loved ones. So once a month he would halt all classes for the day, and the students could spend the time with their families. 

Some families took their student off-world, but the majority remained behind, getting tours of the facilities and taking the time to speak with Luke and the other instructors, seeing how their children were developing.

Ben had spent half the day speaking with the families of his Padawan group, and the other half in his hut, waiting to see if his own mother and father would show up.

They didn’t, of course.  
They rarely did.

Han Solo had a trade and transport business that kept him traveling almost constantly across the far reaches of the galaxy, and Leia was a member of the Galactic Senate, keeping her time fully occupied as well.

Still, Ben had hoped just a little that they’d come, as he wanted the chance to see them one last time, before he carried out his plan.

He hadn’t seen Rey all day, and had just assumed she was busy visiting with her mother and father. It was only now that he was finding out that they hadn’t come.

“They don’t want anything to do with me anymore, since they discovered that I have the Force,” she said, tearfully. “I HATE this!!”

“You hate the Force?”

“I hate not being normal, I hate ... I ...”

Ben patted her back, nodding. “I know. I understand. I hate this, too.”

She looked up at him hopefully. “You do?”

He nodded. “I do. You know, I knew that I had the Force at 6 years old. But I kept it a secret for a long time, because I knew that if I said anything, or they saw me do anything ...”

“ ... you knew that they’d send you away,” Rey finished for him, wiping her nose again. She sighed and continued, “I knew it, too. Tried to keep it secret, too. But one day my mother and father were moving a heavy piece of a scavenged ship into the speeder, and it started to slip. I wasn’t thinking and I caught it with the Force, to save their feet from being crushed. The way they looked at me, Ben —“

Ben took a deep breath, and frowned. He and Rey were creating an extremely heavy feeling in this little room, and Ben felt that if he didn’t get them out, it would crush them both.

“Have you ever been swimming?”, he asked, abruptly.

“S-swimming? No. I come from the desert, remember?”

“Let’s go swimming. Right now. That little lake just outside the forest; its not very deep, and it’s so warm out that —“

“But ... but I don’t know how to —“

“I can teach you. Or we can just go wading, if you want. All you’d have to do is roll up your pant legs. But we ... sometimes when you start feeling bad, you have to make a change. A quick change, a change of scenery, just — a change. To get out of your head. Okay?”

He stood up and held out his hand to her, to help her up. After a few moments hesitation, she took it, smiling. That electric static feeling was there again, but not as bad as that first time he’d grabbed her by the wrist.

“A change. Okay.”, she agreed; and the two set off for the lake under the bright night sky.


	3. Chapter 3

“Again.”

Rey wiped her hand across her forehead, taking several deep, calming breaths, and tried again.

“Master Skywalker,” she gasped, grunting with effort. “I — I can’t! It’s too heavy! It’s —“

Suddenly, the heavy boulder was flying with up above her head, twirling around under the blue sky. She looked at Luke; his hand was up, but his face was as smooth and calm as it was seconds before.

“No. Not too heavy. It’s your mind that’s heavy, Rey. You’re not allowing it to see the truth of things, to see how everything is connected through the Force. This boulder, pebbles, the temple — it’s all bound by the same energy. Use it. Guide it. Now, try again.”

He set the boulder back down, and she took another deep breath and concentrated her energy, holding her hand out.

Jiggle.  
Jiggle.

A drunken wobble, and a bright burst in her mind, and suddenly Rey saw the boulder floating above her in the air, high above the spot where Luke had put it.

Luke smiled, and gave her an approving nod. “Good, Good,” he praised, as she slowly brought the object back to earth. He gave her a few moments to catch her breath, before continuing,

“You’re advancing so fast, Rey. You still need to work on control, and sharpening your focus, but those things improve with time. I want you to know how proud I am of you, dear.”

She smiled and blushed, lowering her head at the praise.

Life here wasn’t at all like she’d expected it to be.

Rey had heard tales all her life of the infamous Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, and his heroic exploits across the galaxy. Growing up, her parents had been (and still were) junk traders, and Rey spent a great deal of her childhood among the wrecked ships, vessels and buildings of bygone eras. Her father had taught his only daughter all that he knew about repair and mechanics, and while the two would work, cleaning pieces of machinery for resale, he would regale her with stories.

She missed this, this bonding time and closeness with her father. And she had a hard time understanding why he and Rey’s mother had chosen to bring her here, why they treated her Force-abilities as if they were something despicable, rather than a great gift.

How could her father tell her the story of Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader on Bespin, his eyes full of such awe and wonder ... then use those same eyes to spit fire and revulsion upon seeing his daughter utilize the same gifts?

When they had told her, they were bringing her here, Rey had attempted to run away. Hero or not, Luke Skywalker was a stranger to her, and she didn’t want to leave her parents behind to go and live with a stranger (and many other strangers, as well). Her mother had taught her reading, writing, and mathematics, so Rey never got the chance to interact with others her age in a social or academic setting.

So, she tried to run; but her father had chased her down, sedated her, then the two of them had brought their confused, half-paralyzed daughter to the Jedi Temple, lightyears away from their home. Rey dreamt of it often; her mother pulling her out of the ship by her arm, because Rey’s legs didn’t work; the way her father had described her as being a ‘witch’; and then watching, horrified, as their ship took off into the early morning sky.

Master Luke had taken her into the medical hut, treating the girl, and speaking calmly with her, trying to soothe her fear and shock.

Rey’s mother would write letters every so often, but she and Rey’s father had not visited once since that fateful night. For a long time, despite how friendly the other students were, Rey felt as though she were drowning in homesickness.

But there was one student that she related to just a little more than the others; someone who unknowingly gave her that sense of home, of familiarity, that she craved:

Ben Solo.

The first time she had met him had been strange. She had been out in the woods, in the dark, sitting against a tree near a cliff’s edge. Ben had walked up from the opposite direction, seemingly not even noticing her, and talking to himself.

She wasn’t positive, but she had gotten the feeling that the boy was going to jump from the edge. So, she said something, and she had scared him, and before long they were talking. It was surreally odd, but, speaking to him was like speaking to somebody that she had known her entire life.

Even if he WAS a little strange.

She was a bit sad, though, because he was gone at the moment. Master Luke had tasked him and one of the older Masters with taking his group of Padawans to Ilum, an ice planet in the far regions, in which sat a cave of Kyber Crystals. He was taking them so that they could pick out a crystal and begin the process of building their own lightsabers.

This was something that Rey would eventually have to do, as well, when Master Luke felt she had advanced enough to do so. It frustrated her a little; all the other students (minus Ben) had been here since they were children and had progressed naturally. She was a little embarrassed that she was in the oldest age group, yet she still didn’t have a saber of her own.

“Don’t worry about it, Rey,” Luke told her now, picking up on her thoughts. “Everyone moves through this at different levels. Just because you’re a late start, it doesn’t mean that you’re any less powerful or talented than anyone else. Alright?”

She smiled and nodded. Although she wasn’t fully aware of this, she had come to regard Luke as being a father figure. His encouragement, kindness and approval meant everything to her, and helped her through the days.

Luke dismissed her for the day and she bowed her head to him, before leaving. She walked through the courtyard, the grass cool and welcoming beneath her bare feet, up the stone steps and into the back door of the temple.

“Hello, Rey!”

The voice came from behind her and brought an instant frown to her face. She quickly straightened it out before the owner of the voice bounded in front of her, a mischievous grin on his own face.

Ziir was one of the many boys she had met here. He was friendly (perhaps overly so), and always seemed to have a knack for catching Rey off guard. His devotional attention to her, while flattering, was also a bit frightening. She knew that Luke taught that those who indulged in the way of the Jedi did not concern themselves with any form of attachment that wasn’t purely friendly. Yet this boy — it was obvious that what he felt for her, went far beyond that constraint. Because Rey has never dealt with a situation like this before, she wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, other than being polite, but keeping her distance.

“Hello, Ziir. How are you?”, she asked now in that polite tone.

“I’m well, except that I’m famished. The other day, during meditation, I had a vision of a crown-berry bush hidden along the path of the forest. I thought I’d take some free time today to attempt to find it. Would you like to join me?”

Rey shook her head. “Maybe some other time. I’m actually a bit tired; I think I’m going to go back to my hut and take a nap.”

“Oh,” he said, his face falling in disappointment. He quickly recovered his grin, though, and said, “Well, if I DO fine some, can I bring them by your hut later?”

“Find some what?”

Both turned around, and Rey’s entire face involuntarily lit up.

“Ben! When did you get back?”

Ben walked up until he had edged himself in-between Rey and Ziir, causing the latter to scowl. “Just now. We’ve gotten the kyber crystals for my Padawans; now we’re heading into the temple to fashion lightsabers.”

“Sounds like a rolling good time,” Ziir said, somewhat sarcastically.

Ignoring him, Ben looked at Rey and said, “Would you like to join us, to watch?”

Before Rey could answer, Ziir piped up “Actually she was on her way to her hut, to take a nap.”

Rey took a deep breath and reached behind Ben, to put a hand on Ziir’s back. “Actually, I think I WILL go. This will be educational for me, especially considering I’m going to be making my OWN saber soon. But after, if you find those berries, I’d be happy to share them in my hut.”

Ziir looked back and forth between her and Ben, and something, some small flash of anger, made Rey quickly draw back her hand. Ben had seen it too, but he didn’t seem scared of it; rather, he seemed to take it as a challenge. He shifted his body so that Rey was completely obscured from Ziir’s view and said, “That sounds like a rolling good time.”

Ziir let out a sigh, and slowly, reluctantly nodded. “Very well,” he said, twisting his head around Ben to see Rey. “Have fun with the Padawans, mi ‘lady”, and he quickly walked away from them and into the forest.

Rey watched him go, feeling incredibly guilty. 

“He won’t find those berries, so I doubt he’ll be visiting you tonight,” Ben said as they walked along, breaking into Rey’s thoughts.

“How do you know that?”

Smirking, he pulled a cluster of the sweet red berries from the pocket of his satchel. “My students were all starving when we came back. Seeing as how meal time is so far away, I had no choice but to procure an impromptu snack for them.”

— -

Rey thrashed around on her pallet, moaning in her sleep. She was having that dream again:

She was running through the forest at full-speed, the air hitched in her lungs, her face covered in perspiration. A figure stalked after her, quickly, patiently. Rey ran until she came up on the edge of a cliff, and she looked down below into a gaping mouth of sharp rocks and jagged branches.

The figure caught up to her. She couldn’t tell what it looked like; it was wearing black robes that covered it from head to toe, and a terrifying gray-black metallic mask that shrouded its entire face. It had a red-glowing lightsaber, making a sound that she had never heard a saber make before, something akin to a growl. He raised it to bring it down on her — and suddenly Ben was there, striking into the creature with his own saber.

Rey watched, terrified, as the two dueled, but just as when her parents first brought her to the Temple, her arms and legs were paralyzed. She couldn’t move or speak.

She couldn’t help Ben.

Her eyes remained wide open in terror as the masked figure drove Ben to his knees, holding the glowing red at his throat.

Rey struggled to open her mouth, to get out the word.

“N—“  
“Nnn—“  
“Nnnn-“

“NO!”, she finally shrieked, as she sat bolt-upright on her pallet.

Her eyes darted around fearfully in the dark. It took her a good while to slow her breathing, to convince herself that she had just had a bad dream.

Eventually she decided that sleep would be impossible, so she rose up and began to dress herself. She felt that maybe a long walk, possibly around the lake, would help to soothe her.

She opened the door to her hut, and nearly shrieked again: Ben was standing outside, his hand raised as if to knock.

The two of them looked at each other, and then Rey said, softly, “What are you doing here?”

Ben looked down at the ground and shuffled around his feet. It was dark, so it was hard to tell, but Rey could have sworn that he was blushing.

“I — uh, sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, but why are —“

“I couldn’t sleep, and I saw the candle on under your door and I thought maybe you couldn’t sleep either, so I thought maybe we could not-sleep, uh, together?”

Rey smiled at his wording. 

“Okay, that sounds like a rolling good time,” she said, repeating the phrase from earlier. “What did you have in mind?”

— -

It was strange, being in the temple at night. Their footsteps echoed against the marble floors, and hearing it put Rey in mind of her dream of the forest. Without being aware of it, she drew a bit closer to Ben, as they walked along. It was hard to see, as the only light came from the single candle Ben held in front of them. Rey wanted to hold on to his arm, but was afraid that —

“Go ahead. It won’t bother me,” Ben said, startling her. She always forgot that he was proficient at reading minds and picking up on feelings, and that she should likely be careful, concerning what she thought about around him.

So, she took hold of his arm with both of her, holding on to it as he guided them through the darkness. It was there again, that strange yet exhilarating feeling of touching a live wire. Rey had been shocked a few times, working on old machines and defunct droids with her father. The feeling now was similar to that, only … well, different. Those times had hurt. This time, and all the previous times, had not hurt, not exactly. But it was nonetheless a strong feeling, one that overwhelmed her senses and put her in mind of falling down a long tunnel.

“Where are we going?”

“The Padawan training room,” he said, grinning.

“Why there?”

“You’ll see.”

They made it to the room, and Ben touched his candle tip to one of the overhead lanterns, giving the room a cheery glow. He walked to the corner of the room and picked up one of the training headsets, designed to keep out all outside influences as the Padawans practiced using their sabers.

“Put this on,” he instructed, handing one to her. She held it in her hands, hesitant. “Why”?

Ben put his own on, and said,

“I’ve been tweaking the system, a little. Luke doesn’t know, and I don’t think any of my students have mentioned it to him, or else he’d probably not like it. BUT, I’ve tweaked it to where now, instead of just total darkness, the viewscreen projects images of distant planets.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Go ahead, give it a try.”

So, she slipped the gear over her eyes and gasped. In front of her, so clear it was like being there, was a lush mountainside surrounded by trees and flowers. It was so real that she could almost smell the flowers and feel the warm sunshine on her skin.

“Where am I looking at?”, she asked, her voice slightly hushed in awe.

“You’re likely looking at Naboo. The headsets you have on are Yopi’s; all of the kids tend to look at scenes of their home planets, and she’s from Naboo.”

“How do you change the scenery?”

“Just say it, and it’ll change.”

“Where were YOU born?”

“Chandrilla.”

Rey said the name, and was immediately met with rolling green mountains, and clear blue lakes. It looked a bit like Naboo to her, except for having a lot more buildings and people walking about.

“It’s pretty.” Rey said, quietly. She could feel Ben shrug beside her, as he answered “I guess. I was born there but I didn’t spend much time there. Mom and dad moved around a lot, because of Han’s trade business.”

Rey took that in quietly, then said, softly, “Jakku.”

Endless sand, intolerably bright sunshine. A small village consisting of several crude homes and a large watering hole for animals. Rey could almost hear the sounds of the people arguing and bargaining at the trade outposts, she could nearly smell the exhaust from the ships, she –

She quickly took the headset off and wiped away the tears she could feel pooling there. Ben took off his own as well.  
“Are you alright?”

She nodded, sitting down on the floor. He sat beside her, his eyes on her face.

“I’m okay. Really, I am. I guess, I just miss my parents.” Here she looked up guiltily. “I know, I know, I need to learn to let go. I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with that, letting go. Clearly they want nothing to do with me anymore.”

Ben sat quietly for a few moments, absorbing her emotions, her pain. He took off his robe and handed it to her, as she looked like she was a bit chilly.

“It’s okay, you know. It’ll be okay. I – I miss my parents sometimes, too.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I do. But I think I miss them a lot more, as they were when I was a kid, if that makes sense. They used to spend so much time with me when I was a little boy, but then, I don’t know, I got older, and they got busier. My – my dad would try and involve me with him for a while, going on hauls and such, but I didn’t really like that. They’d leave me alone, sometimes for days, while they were both at work. Well, not alone; they left my mother’s annoying droid, C-3PO, to ‘monitor’ me.”

“That sounds so lonely, Ben.”

He shrugged, while at the same time scooting closer to her. “Life is lonely, isn’t it? Better to learn that when you’re young, I guess.”

She scooted closer to him as well, and now they were within inches of each other. She took a deep breath, reached over, and put her hand over the top of his, which was resting on the ground between them.

“Life doesn’t always have to be lonely, Ben. YOU, don’t always have to be lonely, or alone.”

He shifted their hands so that his fingers were over the top of hers, and he gave her a warm squeeze. It seemed as though he wanted to say something, but no words would come from his mouth. She knew this, because she could feel it. Sitting with their hands connected, it was as though she could suddenly feel EVERYTHING that he felt. But the emotion that was pressing out most at her, was fear. He feared something, but whether that was her, or something else, she couldn’t quite make out.

He abruptly let go of her hand and stood up, stretching.

“We’d – we’d better get going back to our huts. With our luck, Ziir saw us come in here, and is frothing at the mouth to tell Master Skywalker about us sneaking into the Temple after-hours.”

Rey stood as well, aware that the hand that had been holding Ben’s now felt achingly cold. “Why does Ziir care so much, anyway?”, she muttered, mostly to herself.

“He believes something is going on between us,” Ben answered her matter-of-factly. “Something more than friendship. Which is completely absurd, isn’t it?”

It took Rey a few moments to force a smile to her face, and nod in agreement with Ben’s observation. 

“Absolutely ridiculous,” she offered, as the two walked along back the way they had come. “We’re friends, you and I. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“No. There isn’t.”

The two were quiet the majority of the way to the huts, and Ben bid her a quick goodnight once they had reached Rey’s door. She went in and laid down on her pallet, pulling the covers up to her chin.

Pretty soon, sleep overtook her, and she went into it without a murmur of protest.


	4. Chapter 4

“Ben! Come here, kid, give your old man a hug!”

Ben grimaced and went into Han Solo’s arms, awkwardly putting his arms around him as his father squeezed for all he was worth.

It was towards the end of another week, and Ben had been dismissing his students from the classroom. Today was frustrating; he had spent days trying to get them to memorize certain parts of the Jedi texts, only to have to repeat himself each day. He preferred the physical teachings to the book ones; but he knew that to complain would be futile. After class he had been standing by the window, when he heard it: an impossibly loud, rattling engine. He saw it land on the outskirts of the temple; an old silver YT-1300f light freighter, _decades_ past its prime.

With a sigh he went outside to meet the owner of the ship, trailing behind his uncle, who had gotten there first.

The other students looked on in awe as Captain Solo embraced Master Luke, squeezing just as tightly as he would his son a few moments later, and kissing his cheek. In his own right, Ben’s father was just as famous as Luke. His exploits during the Galactic War had earned him a place in the history books, cemented forever as a hero. 

Looking at the two of them together brought that old familiar pain back into Ben’s chest; that anger at not being told the truth. Looking back on it now, Ben found it difficult to believe that he HADN’T made the familial connection before. Before Luke’s temple had been up and running, when Ben was still young, Luke was over at their home almost constantly, laughing and joking, eating dinner, and telling Ben story after story of his adventures with Ben’s parents. A friend, was what they called him.

A friend.  
When he had been so much more.

“What are you doing here, dad?”, Ben asked, as Han released him.

“Well, I’m making a haul to a trading outpost in the next system, and I thought, maybe my boy would like to join me. I haven’t seen you in a while, I thought we’d go and get some food, maybe catch up?”

“Where’s Chewie? Is he on the ship?”

Han shook his head. “No, he’s back in Kashyyyk for awhile. It’s Wyyyshock season, he’s going on a few hunts.

Ben twisted up his face in a grimace. Wyyyshocks were human-sized sentient spiders that resided on Chewbacca’s home planet. Ben had participated with his Wookiee uncle on a hunt once, when he was around 10. The incident, in which one of the feral beasts had nearly killed him, had left him with a revulsion for anything with more than 2 legs.

Ben was about to make up an excuse and decline the offer to spend time with Han, when Rey walked up from behind, having heard all the commotion outside of her hut. 

“Ah, dad, this is my ... my friend, Rey. Rey, this is my dad, Han Solo.”

Han took Rey’s small hand and kissed it, bowing low before her. “It’s _certainly_ a pleasure, to meet such a stunning young lady.”

Rey giggled and Ben rolled his eyes. For some reason, women always found his dad to be extremely charming. He had always believed that as his father got older, his appeal would wear off ... but apparently this wasn’t yet the case.

Han looked back and forth between Rey and his son, and Ben could feel himself start to blush. His dad, while not imbued with the Force, had always had a scary knack for reading people. He could read that his son was reluctant to go with him, so he said, casually, while looking at Rey,

“Perhaps your _friend_ would care to join us? That is, if it’s alright with you, Luke.”

Luke nodded his permission. “Of course. Just don’t lose either of them; they’re far too valuable to replace.”

“How about it, young lady? I was just telling Ben that, after I make this haul, we could find somewhere to go and eat?”

Rey smiled. “I would love to, Mr. Solo.”

“Han. And it’s settled, then. Come along, kids; times a-wasting!”

— -

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?

Rey rolled her eyes be hoisted another box. “If you tell me that one more time, I’ll kick you, Ben,” she said, teasing him. “I’m not some delicate little flower, you know.”

“I didn’t say you were! But you’re a guest, here, and —“

“If it’s one thing my father taught me, it was how to pull my own weight,” she told her, as she began walking slowly down the ramp. She set her box with the other and straightened back up with a smile. “Besides, I’ve hauled much heavier than this, on Jakku.”

So Ben just sighed and let her continue.

They had reached the trading outpost to discover that the recipients unloading crew was occupied with another ship’s cargo. Han, not wanting to wait, had volunteered to unload the merchandise himself. Ben of course felt obligated to help, but both Ben and Han had protested when Rey rolled up her sleeves and insisted on helping, as well.

Ben watched her now, going back up the ramp. Han came up behind him from where he had been talking to the outpost proprietor, a small smile on his face.

“Beautiful, AND strong. A little stubborn as well. Reminds me a lot of your mother.”

Ben shrugged, but didn’t reply. Han went on: “So how long have you two been, er, ‘friends?’”

Ben looked sharply at his father when he said that, having heard what he was actually thinking.

“That’s really ALL she is, dad. My friend. Okay?”

The two started quietly up the ramp back into the ship, and as they walked, Han said, softly, “But you know if she WAS something more than that, that there’s nothing wrong with that, right?”

“No, dad, I don’t know that. Because, under Jedi teachings, there IS something **wrong** with that!”

“Jedi teachings,” Han muttered, scrubbing a hand across his face. The two walked back to the cargo hold, Ben with his fists clenched at the anger he could feel rising up his throat. “You — I should have had you stay with ME. Here. On the Falcon. Being a part of my business.”

They reached the cargo hold, and Han changed his voice, praising Rey for her strength, as she had another box in her hands. As soon as she left the room, Ben turned to him and hissed, “Then maybe you should have said something, when mom decided to send me to Luke. Maybe you should have fought for me, for my right to make choices. But I guess it’s too late for all that now, isn’t it, dad?”

He picked up the final box and hauled it outside, walking after Rey. Han watched his son go, sighing.

— -

It was only Rey’s presence that kept the meal from being an intolerable one. She was cheerful and vivacious, so happy to be away from the often-dull aura of the Temple. This was in fact the first time she had been off-world in MONTHS, ever since her fateful arrival, and she was making the most of it.

They had stopped at a diner on Korta, a small planet in the next system, for dinner. The man knew Han Solo and therefore their food and drinks were on the house — and Rey delighted in this. She put dish after dish into herself, marveling over tastes and textures, as the two men watched her in awe. It was unclear, how someone so tiny could fill herself with so much sustenance, and keep going. With anyone else this would have seemed gluttonous, but with her, she made it look sweet and charming, as she did with practically everything else. And they were breaking Master Luke’s vegetarian diet; but each of them made an unspoken pact with one another to keep that little fact to themselves.

During the course of their conversation, Han discovered that he knew Unkar Platt, a man that Rey and her parents had done frequent business with on Jakku. The two spoke on that for a long while, and Rey entertained them with several anecdotes of times when the man’s often-shady business ventures had landed him in hot water.

Han also spoke to the both of them about their education and their experiences, although, after his son’s earlier outburst, he was afraid to push Ben too hard. Rey spoke up enough for both of them, praising Ben’s teaching of the Padawans, and her words breathed new life into what was in reality a very tedious task.

Han watched the two young ones, his son and Rey, and couldn’t help the wistful feeling that flooded his chest. The way that Rey looked at Ben, the way she touched his arm, stole food from his plate, the way the two couldn’t seem to stop finishing each other’s sentences ...

_It’s too late for all that now, isn’t it?_

Towards the end of the meal, Ben turned towards his dad and asked, “So how’s mom?”

“Your mom is good,” Han replied, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Busy though; the senate has been working on a new tax bill for months, and it’s been taking up a lot of her energy. I know she misses you, though.”

Ben picked up his glass of water and took a slow sip. When he was done, he said, still holding the glass in both hands, “I’m sure she does. I’m sure you both do. You must, considering the effort you’ve made to see me this past year.”

“Ben,” Rey said, quietly, putting her hand on his arm. 

Ben looked at her, and immediately calmed himself. He set down his glass (before, he had been clutching it hard enough to break it) and said, as lightly as he could, “Well, regardless, I’m ... I appreciate you being here, now.”

“I appreciate you joining me, Ben.”

Rey excused herself to the refreshers, and Han waited until she was out of sight before turning to his son and saying, somewhat awkwardly,

“Ben ... have I, uh, have I ever given you ... have I ever had a talk with you? About ... about women? And — and things? Or did your mother?”

Ben’s face and neck burned a deep red, and he looked down at the table, busting himself with his napkin.

“I’m almost 20 years old, dad.”

“I know that, but that’s not the question I asked.”

After an uncomfortable spell of silence, Ben answered, in a low voice, “No. Neither of you ever did. But I’ve read some things, and I’ve seen a few holos, so —“

Han nodded, also looking down at the table. “Okay. That’s good. But if, say, you had anything you wanted to ask me, I just want you to know that you can ask me. Alright?”

Ben nodded, then frowned. “Okay, but, given my current situation in life, I don’t feel like I’d be able to make use of anything you could tell me, Han.”

Han looked up; Rey was on her way back from the refreshers, smiling as she made her way to them.

“You never know, Benny; you never know.”

— -

Saying goodbye to Han was bittersweet. On one hand, Ben could really feel that Han was trying hard, to reach out to him. On the other hand, Ben still had so much anger over all the mistakes he felt Han had made, and part of him simply refused to let those negative feelings go. Han could sense that his boy felt this way about him, and it prevented him from attempting to dig any deeper into his son’s life than necessary. But this girl ...

Jedi rules or not, ‘just friends’ or not ...

“I love you, Ben,” Han said softly, hugging his boy. “I’ll be coming through this system again in about a month; would it be okay if I stopped and saw you again? Maybe bring Leia next time?”

Ben nodded, and gently detached himself from Han’s arms. “Okay. See you then.”

Han nodded, then turned to Rey and took her hand, kissing it again. “You, my dear, I look forward to seeing again as well.”

“You as well, Han.”

Ben and Rey watched as the Falcon lifted shakily off into the sky, the fire of the thrusters creating heat on their faces.

“So that was Han Solo,” Rey said, after awhile. “A lot more interesting than the Han Solo I’ve read about in the history texts.”

Ben let out a long, shuddery sigh. “A lot more complicated, too.”

He shifted and turned away from her abruptly. 

“I think I’m a little tired. I’m going to go to bed early tonight. Goodnight, Rey.”

“Goodnight, Ben. I had fun today.”

Ben smiled. “Good. I’m glad.”; and with that, he walked off to his hut.

— -

The chasm below the bridge went down so low that Ben couldn’t see the bottom of it. There were no railings; one false move and he would go plummeting to his death.

He looked up; Han Solo was making his way across the bridge to him. He had aged alarmingly; his dark brown hair was now a snowy white, his face etched in wrinkles. Looking at himself, Ben realized that he was older, too; his face was harder, and had more lines, and he was dressed in a solid black, so many layers that his body felt weighted down with them.

Han approached him, and began speaking to him, but Ben couldn’t make out any of the words. Hans mouth was moving but nothing that he said seemed to make it to Ben’s ears.

In a slow-motion horror, he watched himself pick up a lightsaber, the one he had seen before, with the three blades of red light, and thrust it directly into his father’s chest. Han’s face contorted in shock and pain, and he reached out a shaking hand and gently cradled the side of his son’s face, before falling backwards into the endless pit. From above him, Chewbacca was suddenly there, roaring in agony, and he shot off his bowcaster directly at his nephew, hitting him point-blank in his side.

Ben woke up with a start, his face covered in sweat, breathing harshly in the dark. He quickly rolled up his shirt and looked at his side; it was smooth and unblemished as always — but Ben could still FEEL that phantom, dreamlike pain of being hit.

“Maker, Ben, this is getting worse,” he said to himself, still trying to catch his breath. “You need to take care of this, before these things become a reality.”

He laid back down, curling up into a ball, trying to calm himself enough to sleep. He tried — but something was distracting him. He closed his eyes and reached out with his senses, trying to see what it was.

It was —

_It was **Luke.**_

He could feel Luke, awake, and standing several feet outside of Ben’s hut. He could see the expression on his face; a mix of cold fear, pain, and confusion. He could feel the shifting steps his uncle made, one foot towards Ben, the other towards his own hut, back and forth, rocking in a sea of indecision.

Eventually, Luke opted to go back towards his own hut, and Ben let out a breath he hadn’t even been aware that he was holding in.

Sleep eluded him the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

There weren’t many Jedi-recognized holidays in Luke Skywalker’s neck of the universe. He mostly believed that celebrations of trivial events were pointless, and didn’t hold a place for him, or for any of his students. But there was one event from the past that Luke believed should be celebrated every year: the beginning of the defeat of the Empire, and the destruction of the second Death Star after the battle of Endor.

He had his own personal reasons for celebrating this time, rather than the obvious: it was also the day that Darth Vader regained his soul, and became Anakin Skywalker once more.

Every year, he would allow his students about a week off from classes, to reflect on this time period in whichever way they chose. Luke himself stayed at the temple, meditating and thinking of his father. Those students who could, went home to their families during the week. The ones left behind spent their time relaxing, going on hikes, swimming in the lake, and just generally enjoying the time away from classes and lessons.

Last year, Ben had opted to stay at the temple, rather than make the trek home. His mother and father had both been busy with other things, and Ben didn’t really relish the idea of going home just to spend the majority of his time with C-3PO.

This year was slightly different. His mother had written him several days ago, expressing her desire that Ben come and see her for the week. While she did maintain that she would be working, she mentioned a charity event that she was hosting at the end of the week, where there would be a dance that she thought he might like to attend. 

_A dance marathon, is what they’re calling it,_ she had written in her neat handwriting. _People donate money to see the contest, and how long those competing can remain on their feet and dancing. I’ve heard that they tried this idea on Corelia, and raised much more revenue than anyone had anticipated. You might like to be a competitor, son. Or perhaps just watch. Either way, it’s something different, so —_

Ben skimmed through the rest of the letter, already thinking up excuses in his head not to go. But as he reached the end —

_Your father tells me that you have a new friend. Perhaps you’d like to invite your friend along with you, if she has no other plans for the week? I can fix up the guest room, and I’m sure your time will be more pleasant with a friend during the hours I’m not there._

And the idea did appeal to Ben; but he wasn’t sure how to approach Rey with it. He doubted that her own parents would be coming for her, but maybe she had been looking forward to spending some quiet time at the temple?

He walked out of his hut and into the early morning sunshine, breathing in deeply. This was the time of year that the autumn berries bloomed, and the flowers surrounding them always gave off the most delightful fragrances. He saw Ziir standing by Rey’s hut, leaning in the open door and speaking with her about something or other. He was surprised, that a big part of him felt such an overpowering urge to walk up to Ziir, stab him with a lightsaber, and toss him backwards and away from Rey.

 _Why, Ben?_ , he asked himself as he forced himself to walk away in the opposite direction. _You can’t be the only friend she has, you know. Stop it. **Stop** it._

He went into the temple and found Master Frenrick, and asked if he’d mind taking over Ben’s Padawan class for the day. When Frenrick agreed, Ben slipped out the back door and towards the lake, thinking that he should spend the day in meditation, to try and atone for his violent thoughts regarding Ziir.

The water was absolutely beautiful, glimmering in the sunlight. Ben chose a large, flat-sided stone that was sticking up out of the water, on which to sit. He closed his eyes and rested his hands on his knees, breathing deeply in and out, in and out, until some measure of calmness overtook him.

Bird.  
Tree.  
Bird bird.  
Fish.  
Tree.  
Water.

It was rare that Ben could let his mind go completely free, in order to feel the presence of every living thing around him. He had worked on keeping everything faded into a dull background noise, so when he fully let go and let his Force reach out, it could be overwhelming at first.

Fish.  
Tree.  
Grass.  
Person.  
Person.  
Person.  
Water.

GOLD.

Ben’s eyes opened at that, because in his head he was seeing an energy walk towards him, and the light surrounding that energy was a bright, blinding gold. So strong and so pure it was like it had been created by the Force itself. 

He scanned the area from where he had seen it coming, and watched, with no real surprise, as Rey walked out of the trees towards him. He raised his hand in greeting, and she returned the gesture, smiling as her pace quickened and she closed the distance between them.

“What are you doing out here?”, he asked her, while automatically scooting over on his rock to make room for her. She sat down beside him gently. 

“I felt so restless today, and I didn’t think I could bear to spend such a beautiful day inside the classroom. So I snuck out.”

Ben grinned at that. “You snuck out? That’s unlike you; I didn’t know you had it to be so devious, Rey.”

She shoved at his shoulder playfully. “Look who’s talking, Ben. Why aren’t YOU inside working on your lessons, or with the Padawans?”

“The same reason as you, I guess. I suppose we’re being silly, though, considering we only have 3 more days of this before the vacation.”

Rey sighed when he said that. She leaned down and picked up a handful of pebbles, skimming them one by one across the lake. 

“Vacation,” she muttered after awhile, not looking at him. “I haven’t heard from mom, so I guess I’ll be here. I was talking to Ziir earlier, and so will he, and a few of the others, so I guess I won’t be alone.”

Ben nodded, and then he glanced down at Rey’s hand, which was resting on the warm stone between them. It was so tiny, but it looked so soft and inviting —

Ben stopped the thought in its track and picked up both of his arms, folding them tightly across his chest.

“I ... was thinking of going home. I haven’t seen my mom in awhile. I ... well, Rey, if you aren’t ... if you don’t ... do you want to come with me?”

He was afraid to turn his head and look at her, to see whatever the expression on her face might be. 

“Go with you to your home?”, was what she asked, quietly, after what seemed like a long while.

Ben nodded, still not looking at her. “It’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but, well, I thought you might like it. “

He told her a little about his house, his mother, and finished with the dance at the end of the week. 

“But you don’t have to, if —“

“I’d love to go.”

Ben looked up quickly, and into her smiling face.

“Really?”

“I’d love to go! I’d love to see your home, and a dance! I’ve never been to a dance before! Only —“

“Only what?”, he asked, anxiously.

“Only I don’t think I have anything to wear, that would be appropriate for an occasion like that.”

Ben let out a small sigh of relief. “Don’t worry, I’m sure my mother could lend you something. You both are about the same size.”, he said, and then, without really thinking about it, “You could go in a tarp and still be the most beautiful person in the room.”

Rey’s eyes widened, and both of them heavily blushed. A quiet passed between them, a loaded, electric silence that had their nerve endings tingling with sensation.

“Thank you,” she said, after a long while.  
“You’re welcome.”

— -

“Han, this is a problem.”

“What is?”

It was late at night, and everyone retired hours ago. 

Taking Rey home with him had been a pleasant experience, thus far. She had never been to Coruscant before, and she ooh’d and aah’d as the ship landed in the docking port near Ben’s home. Ben’s father had come to get them both, and would be staying overnight until the next afternoon, before leaving for his next haul.

“There’s so many buildings!”, she cried, her nose practically pressed against the Falcon’s glass. “There can’t possibly be this many people here!”

“Oh, there is,” Han told her, as he made the landing. “Ben said you’re from, where, Jakku? Well, you could likely fit Jakku’s entire population here, several times over.”

“It’s not just people,” Ben supplied from his place beside her. “There’s eating establishments, museums, there’s the New Republic senate building — so many different things to see.”

Ben’s mother had been waiting for them in the doorway, wearing her favorite blue dress, her hair pulled back into its signature bun.

“Ben!”, she had exclaimed when they got close, running at her son. She was about the same height as Rey, and Ben had to bend down so that she could put her arms around him. “Oh, baby, I have MISSED you!”

Ben scrunched up his face when she kissed his cheek, and gently but firmly pulled out of her arms. He reached back and put his hand under Rey’s arm, guiding her forward.

“Mom, this is my friend Rey. Rey, this is my mother, Leia Organa-Solo.”

Rey reached for Leia’s hand, and Ben could feel how awed she was, meeting her. More than his father, perhaps even more than his uncle, Leia Organa had been a household name for decades. A leader of the Rebellion that had taken down the Empire, the last living princess of Alderaan, the lifelong senate member and public servant ...

But Leia always had a way of making others feel at home with her, famous or not. She took the hand that Rey had extended and pulled her into a warm hug. “I’m so happy to meet you, dear,” she told the surprised girl, patting her back. “I don’t think Ben has ever brought a friend home before; I was starting to think he didn’t have any.”

“Mom!”, Ben exclaimed, embarrassed. But Leia’s joke had clearly put Rey at ease; the tenseness in her shoulders went away, and she was able to speak to Leia normally.

Leia showed Rey to the guest room, while Ben and his father went to the kitchen to wash up. It was much later in the day, as they’d gotten a late start, and was already time for dinner. The meal was a pleasant one, full of cheerful conversation, and afterwards, everyone had, full and tired, decided to turn in.

Ben was, as usual, still awake, sitting and thinking about possible things he could take Rey to do this week. Han and Leia were apparently still awake, too; Ben could hear them talking through his bedroom wall, the same way he always had when he was a kid.

“When you told me that Ben had a friend — how could you not tell me how ... how ...”

“You like her, don’t you?”

Ben sat up straighter, holding his breath for the answer.

“Of course I do! She’s sweet, she’s smart, and she’s pretty. But Han, Ben ... he’s training to be a Jedi. You know that, right?”

Ben could almost feel his father roll his eyes, as he replied, “Of course I know that, Princess. The last time I checked, Jedi’s are allowed to have friends, aren’t they?”

“Stop playing stupid with me!”, she hissed at her husband in a low whisper. “You know what I’m trying to say! Or are you totally blind?”

When Han didn’t respond, Leia went on: “I can feel it, I could feel it the second the two of them walked through the front door. Ben ... he’s in love with that girl!”

Ben felt himself go white with shock, and he had to lay down, quickly, as his mother’s words had him feeling light-headed.

In love?

Leia thought that he was _in love_ , with Rey? He was in such disbelief over that, he could barely catch his father’s response.

“So what?”

“So what? Han — Ben has been with Luke for over 3 years. Luke told me that a couple more years, and he’ll be more than ready to be a full-fledged Jedi Master. But if he feels an actual love for this girl ...”

Both of his parents fell silent, and Ben closed his eyes, concentrating hard so that he could visualize them through the walls. He could see his mother standing beside the bed, her face full of worry. He could see his father sitting cross-legged in he bed, the covers pulled over his legs, looking down at his hands.

He saw Han hold out his hand, and Leia take it, and climb into the bed beside him.

“Leia,” his father began, softly. “You and I, we’ve made a serious mistake. We sent Ben to your brother because we thought it was the best thing for him, but maybe ... maybe we should have let him make his own choice. We ... we shouldn’t pressure him into any path in life, that he may not want to go down. We do that and he’ll hate us forever.”

His mom didn’t answer, but Ben could visualize that she had started to cry, softly.

“He already does,” she murmured in a tear-laden voice. “Or he hates ME. He barely speaks to me, he stiffens when I try to hug him — I just, he was so powerful, I wanted the best thing for him. I didn’t mean to take away his choices. I didn’t — I didn’t —“, and she burst into more tears, harder this time.

Ben could see Han holding her, trying to soothe her. “He doesn’t hate you, Leia. He’s conflicted, he’s in pain. Maybe being a Jedi will fix that. Maybe it won’t. But we have to give him room to breathe, and to decide. And if you’re right, if he does love this girl, if there’s any chance of them having some sort of future together, we can’t stand in the way of that. Jedi or no.”

“But Luke —“

“Luke would understand, if that turned out to be the case. I know he would. But right now, we need to leave things alone, and let things play out naturally. And who knows, maybe you’re wrong. Maybe we’re BOTH wrong, and the girl IS just a friend. Considering how sweet she is, and how calm and happy Ben seems when he’s around her, I’d say she’s a damn good friend to have.”

Ben could hear his mother blow her nose, and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

“You’re right. You’re right.”

Ben heard his father get up and switch off the lights. “Let’s go to bed, alright, sweetheart? Things always look the bleakest at night, but everything will be okay again in the morning. You’ll see.”

“Okay. I think I’ll leave a little later tomorrow; I’m going to make all of Ben’s favorites for breakfast. If that doesn’t make him love me, what will?”, she said, and both of them burst into easy laughter.

Ben had just about decided that they were done talking, and was about to try and sleep himself, when Han’s voice broke through the fog, softly, curiously,

“I have one question, though; you say that our son loves this girl. That you can feel it. What does she feel for him?”

But Ben quickly plugged his ears, not quite daring to hear his mother’s answer. He kept his fingers in a long time, listening to the pounding of his own heart, before cautiously lowering them.

It was quiet.

So he turned over on his side and tried to fall sleep.

— -

_Flying through space at light-speed, a small ship, circular, with a barrage of controls in front of him. Ben presses one; a powerful laxer fires out of a port, and destroys another ship. The feeling that this gives Ben is indescribable; he can feel the life-force of the opposing ship’s pilot leave him, and it flood Ben with a previously-unknown joy._

_Now other ships are around him, firing lasers at the enemy, taking down the opponent with ease. Ben gives the orders through a Comm, and they’re obeyed without hesitation. He and his men come upon a large ship, silver, with a viewport directly facing them. Ben pauses; he can see his mother on that ship. She’s facing him, her hair having gone slightly gray, her face a mask of her timeless beauty. She’s worried, Ben can feel her worry floating towards him across the stars._

Don’t worry, mom, _he wants to say, as the two gaze at one another_ , I would never hurt you. _Yet no sooner does he have the thought than one of his men fires at the silver vessel. Ben watches as his mother’s body is pulled out through the vacuum of glass and debris, watches with horror as her face turns blue, as everything that he once loved about this woman becomes cold, and stiff, and lifeless._

— -

Ben woke up to an insistent tapping on his door. He glanced at the timepiece on the wall; he’d overslept.

“Come in,” he called, stifling a yawn.

Rey walked in, a smile on her face as she took in the sight of Ben, still in bed.

“Ben! Goodness, are you still sleeping? Get up; your mother and I have made a big breakfast and we’re waiting on you, sleepyhead!”

Ben pretended to still be tired, pulling the covers fully over his head and laying down on his side. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said, giving an exaggerated loud yawn.

Before he could react, Rey took a running leap and jumped into his bed, landing on his legs. 

“You’re getting out of this bed even if I have to drag you out myself.”

“You couldn’t if you tried; I’m far too heavy for you.”

Instead of responding, Rey reached under the covers and grabbed an ankle. Thinking that she was about to try and pull him out, he braced himself, only to be met with a surprise: she was _tickling_ the bottom of his foot, instead.

Ben let out a yelp that set Rey to laughing hysterically, and tumbled onto his feet on the floor.

“That’s not fair!”, he exclaimed, as she continued to laugh. “Tickling is the worst form of torture there is!”

Still laughing, Rey said, “Oh, lighten up, Ben. It’s not that bad.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Ben said slowly, stalking towards where she was still sitting on his bed, “Because —“

Rey shrieked as Ben dove at her, trying to tickle her in retaliation. She laughed and ducked over and around the covers, avoiding his hands. Eventually she scrambled out and ran down the hallway and away from him, still giggling the entire way. 

Ben smiled to himself as he began to get dressed, and prepared to face the day ahead.

— -

The week with Rey had been a memorable one. Leia was gone the majority of the day, but she left the kids free use of her minor ship, a small two-person speeder. Rey learned right away that Ben was an incredibly FAST driver, and she often kept her eyes closed as she cling to him from place to place.

And they went a lot of places.

The Imperial Artifact museum, two national parks, a zoo hosting animals from as far away as other galaxies. There was a lake on the south side of the planet, surrounded by a sandy beach, and Ben and Rey spent a full day here, with Ben giving Rey those swimming lessons he had promised her so long ago.

They even went to a public senate meeting, as Rey wanted the chance to hear Leia speak. When he was growing up, Ben found these events terribly boring. But now, looking at it through Rey’s eyes, he found new meaning in his mother’s words.

At the end of this meeting was when Leia once again began speaking about the charity ball, and the dance marathon.

“Sign-Up is available up through tomorrow; you and your partner register as a couple, and audience members pay for the excitement of seeing you dance the evening away. The winning couple receives meal vouchers to several local restaurants, as well as their picture taken for the Holo-Circulars.”

The meeting ended, and some people went up to sign the slip of paper.

“Let’s do it,” Rey said, abruptly.

“What?”

“Let’s sign up. Me and you.”

Ben looked down on her curiously. “Are you sure?”

She grabbed his hand and began pulling him towards the front of the room. “Yes! It’ll be fun, and a way to earn money for charity.”

She signed her name to the paper and handed the quill to Ben. He grinned, and signed next to her.

The evening of the dance came, and the Solo household spent quite a while getting ready. Ben and his father were ready the fastest. Han, never one to dress up, was wearing his ‘nicest’ vest over a clean white shirt, and a pair of his ‘good’ pants. 

But Ben was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt, overlaid with a fancy-button jacket, and a pair of long black pants. He loved the color black, and missed being able to wear it; at the temple, all of the robes were in tan or gray.

He sat beside his father on the couch, nervously fidgeting with himself, waiting on Rey and his mother. Han watched him for a moment, before saying,

“I remember my first ‘real’ outing with your mother. I was scared, too.”

“This isn’t an outing, dad; Rey is my FRIEND. This is another activity to do on our FRIENDS list.”

At that moment, the refresher door opened, and Leia and Rey emerged. Ben felt his mouth drop, and wasn’t entirely sure how to make it close again.

Rey was wearing a gorgeous dark green dress, strapless, that hugged around her chest and cascaded gracefully to the floor. There were dark blue flowers as accents around the train and the hem. His mother had helped Rey pull her long hair back into a single heavy braid, that fell to midway down her back.

Ben was at a literal loss for words, he felt so stunned by her magnificence. Han saw this, and quickly stood up, pulling his son up by the arm with him.

“What have we done, in this life or any other, to be worthy of being in the presence of such divinity?”, Han asked, bowing and kissing first Rey’s hand, then his wife’s. 

Rey giggled, but Leia simply rolled her eyes, used to her husband’s sweet talk.

“Alright, Solo. Come on, or we’ll be late.”

She turned to walk out to the ship, with Han trailing behind her. Ben and Rey lingered a bit, and Ben nervously cleared his throat, and said, softly,

“You look incredible, Rey.”

She blushed and looked down at her feet. 

“You don’t look half-bad yourself, Ben. I love that color on you—it makes your skin pop.”

Now it was Ben’s turn to blush, and he muttered “Your dress — it’s green. Your eyes are brown and green. It matches.”

“Kids! Are you coming?”

Ben turned and offered Rey his arm. “Shall we?”

— -

“Your mother gave me such pretty shoes to wear ... but they hurt my feet. This dress is pretty long; do you think anyone will notice, if —“

Ben grinned and reached underneath the table, quickly unlacing his own boots. “Not if I do it, too.”

They were sitting at a table in the city’s grand ballroom, nibbling on appetizers, and waiting for the contest to begin. Rey had been introduced to all of Leia’s friends, and everyone had seemed charmed with the small, vibrant young woman.

The overhead announced the beginning of the contest, and Ben stood up, offering his hand to Rey. “Ready?”

“Always.”

They started off slowly at first, with Ben talking quietly to Rey, and demonstrating how to move her feet. When she seemed to have that mastered, they worked on upper body movements, something that had to utilize when the more lively songs came on.

Ben looked around them; everyone seemed to be in great spirits. There was a refresh-booth set up by the door, where dancing couples could stop and drink water for about 2 minutes, without being disqualified. Ben danced Rey over and they both took several long swallows of the icy drink, before continuing.

“This is something that Master Luke should be teaching at the Temple,” Rey observe, as the song changed.

“Why is that?”

“It teaches all sorts of skills; coordination, symmetry, teamwork —“

Ben chuckled and shook his head. “That all sounds good in theory, but I think the reality would end with you being worn out. You’re the only girl above Padawan age; everyone would be fighting to dance with you.”

“Well, then, they’d be fighting YOU, as well.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’d the one I danced with the longest.”

Ben smiled, took her hand and spun her around him in a graceful circle. When she came back to him, he put his arm around her waist, pulling her even closer into him. 

“I didn’t realize you were such a skilled dancer,” she said, somewhat breathlessly.

He shrugged, and said, “When I was younger, my mom would make us go to all kinds of events like this. So I kind of had to learn; mom would make me dance with all of her friends’ daughters.”

Rey laughed at that. “Sounds dreadful.”

“It was. No boy likes to dance; I’d have rather been hiding out in the kitchen and eating all the food.”

He glanced down at her. “Are you tired yet?”

She shook her head. “No. Are you?”

“Not at all.”

Song after song, melody after beautiful melody, they danced together. Rey was a fast learner, and before long her movements perfectly matched Ben’s own. Around them, other competitors were dropping off, one by one. The Calrissians went down after a lively Cantina song, the Ackbars after the fifth slow dance of the evening. But Ben and Rey kept at it, swaying with each other around the room.

It was odd, considering all the people that were here tonight, but to Ben, it seemed the two of them were completely alone. They laughed and talked through each number, and the more they spoke, the closer they got to one another. Hours were passing, but it seemed like mere minutes. Ben had started off the evening trying to keep an appropriate distance between their bodies, but now they were so close that they were almost _one_ body. 

One song in particular was so soft and sweet that it sounded like a lullaby. Rey surprised him during that number, by putting both arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest. They were still dancing, they were still moving — but it seemed as though time had stood completely still, during this moment. Ben was slightly bent to accommodate her height, and timidly reached out to stroke her soft, fragrant hair. Rey looked up at him when he did this, looked right into his eyes, and Ben could swear he felt his heart drop into the pit of his stomach.

He bent his head and leaned closer and closer towards her, she closed her eyes, and —

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!”, boomed a loud voice from the overhead, and both of them jumped, separating from each other. 

Ben looked around; nobody else remained on the floor except the two of them. All the other couples were standing on the sidelines with the audience — and everyone was watching them.

After the announcement, everyone crowded unto the floor to congratulate the pair. Ben knew that many hands were clapping him on the shoulder, and many words of praise and admiration were being spoken to them both — but none of that seemed to matter to him.

What DID seem to matter, was the tingling in his hand. He looked down; in the interval, Rey had reached down and taken hold of his hand, giving it an excited squeeze.

“I can’t believe we won! This is amazing!”

Squeezing her hand back, he said, with a smirk, “See? I told you dancing was easy.”

A droid stood in front of them, informing them it had to take their picture for the Holo-Circular. Ben stood at Rey’s side, and cautiously put his arm around her waist. Rey looked at him, leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. The droid snapped the picture at that exact moment, and everyone laughed and clapped.

Ben didn’t think he had ever smiled as widely in his entire life as he was right then. When the picture was taken, the droid asked if they wanted a copy.

“Of course,” Ben said, still smiling, “Tonight is something I’d like to remember. A good time ... with a good friend.”

“Yes,” Rey said from beside him, also smiling. “A very good friend.”


	6. Chapter 6

“So that was it. I was going to die. I KNEW I was going to die, but there was no fear, and, at that point, the cold had caused me to cease feeling all pain. I remember closing my eyes, and accepting it. Not giving up, exactly, but simply accepting whatever was to come. I thought what was coming, was death ... but I was wrong. It was Obi-Wan. I could see him standing in front of me, so clearly, and I remember thinking, Yes, I MUST be dead. Because Obi-Wan was dead, and if I can see him, I must be, too.”

“Did THAT scare you? Seeing a — a ghost?”

Luke shook his head, while throwing another stick on the fire. It was late, and Rey was sitting with him in his hut. They had been going over a few parts of the Jedi texts that had confused her for the past few hours. They had landed on the topic of putting trust in one’s instincts, which had prompted Luke to go into the story about the true beginning of his Jedi training. This was a tale he had told his other students plenty of times, but Rey had not yet heard it.

“No,” Luke answered her, after a moment of contemplation. “I don’t think I was afraid. Actually I don’t believe I felt ANYTHING at the time. Hoth was so cold, Rey, it robbed you of all of your senses one by one. But anyway, Ben is standing in front of me, and —“

“Ben? I thought his name was Obi-Wan?”

Luke nodded. “It was, but when I met him, he had been living in recluse on Tattoine, living under the guise of an old hermit, who called himself Ben.” Here he paused, smiling. “That’s why my nephew is called Ben, you know. Han wanted Han Solo Jr., but I insisted. After all, if it hadn’t been for Obi-Wan, none of us would have survived.”

“That’s interesting,” Rey said, softly. “Ben never mentioned that before.”

“I’m not surprised,” Luke said, chuckling. “He’s always hated the name. But, alright, where was I?”

“Obi-Wan was standing in front of you, and you weren’t afraid.”

“Right,” Luke nodded, scratching his beard. “So Ben was in front of me, and he was speaking. I could see his mouth move, but I couldn’t hear the words, not with my ears. I heard them in my _mind_. He told me to go to the Dagobah system, to learn the ways of the Force from Yoda.”

“The Yoda from the historical texts?”

Luke nodded. “That’s the one. The energy of a mountain packed into a two foot high Parsikkian. Anyway, Ben told me that, and then I must have passed out. I don’t remember what happened next; all I remember was waking up, hours later. It was dark, but instead of the excruciating cold I SHOULD have felt, I was warm. There was a horrible stink assaulting my nostrils, but I was warm. I was able to turn my head, and Han was there, asleep next to me. Turns out he had used my saber to cut open my dead Taun-Taun, and had gotten us both inside of its entrails. Kept us warm until morning, and by then we were able to navigate our way back to the base.”

Rey sat in awed silence for a long time, thinking over Luke’s story. She had so many questions, especially about Luke’s training on Dagobah. But Luke smiled, picking the thought out of her brain, and said,

“No, that’s enough stories for tonight, young one. It’s time you were getting on to bed.”

Rey nodded and stood up, stretching and lightly stomping out her stiff legs. 

“Thank you for your counsel, Master,” she said, nodding towards the still-open page of text sitting on his table. “Good evening.”

“Good evening, Rey,” he replied, watching her go. It was strange, but more and more, he was adopting an almost ... fatherly, feeling towards the young girl. Maybe it was the fact that he had witnessed her own parents abandon her in such a cruel fashion. Maybe it was because he could feel how lonely she often felt. Whatever it was, the result ended up being that his heart softened whenever she was around, and he wanted to do everything he could, to protect her.

Or maybe the reason was that she unconsciously accepted his familial-like attitude towards her, and he needed this acceptance, as his own offspring did everything he could to thoroughly reject him.

Luke sighed as he laid down on his pallet, watching the dying embers of the fire. About a year ago, when Ben had been digging into the historical files and had been doing a lot of research about Darth Vader, Luke had tried to hide how nervous that made him. Ben knew, of course, that Vader was Luke’s father (EVERYBODY knew), but had never been told that his mother was Luke’s sister. Leia had always demanded it be kept a secret; she didn’t want her son to know that he had come from such a darkness. But Ben was highly intelligent, and he very quickly put two and two together: how often Luke used to visit them on Chandrilla. How he and Leia seemed to communicate on another level sometimes, which wouldn’t have been possible unless Leia had some connection to the Force. And other things; a million tiny other seemingly insignificant details that made up a clear picture of a startling realization.

Ben had brought his questions to Luke one night, trembling, angry ... but rather than sit him down and have an honest talk with him, Luke had simply skirted or denied anything Ben had asked. Several weeks after that, Ben had gone home, and had an explosive confrontation with his mother, to which she finally admitted the sibling-relation between herself and Luke.

From then on, things had been different between them. 

Ben had once been extremely close to Luke, taking solace in him as a father-figure to supplement his shaky relationship with his own father Han. But after coming back, after having learned the truth, he refused to let Luke into his confidences anymore. 

Which isn’t to say that his training suffered; Ben was by far the most advanced out of any of Luke’s pupils. He picked up on concepts and techniques ten times faster than his peers; in fact he was so progressed that Luke let him student-teach a group of Padawans in addition to the boy’s own lessons.

But after that day, Ben shut himself and his mind off to Luke, keeping himself so emotionally closed down that most of the time, speaking to him was like speaking to a cold brick wall.

“Colder than Hoth,” Luke muttered to himself now, smiling ruefully to himself. He turned himself over with a sigh. He had hoped that one day, when he passed on, Ben would step into his place as the next Jedi Grand-Master. But with each passing day, he doubted that reality more and more. He could sense the constant swirl of anger and confusion around his nephew, and how hard he was working to hold himself together every single day. Luke knew that he needed to step in and DO something, to try and help him before his feelings manifested themselves in other, possibly lethal, ways; but he didn’t know where to begin, or even how to TALK to Ben about it.

The only thing that seemed to give the boy any kind of peace, of comfort ... was Rey.

And this was perhaps the reason why Luke chose to overlook his nephew’s obvious, un-Jedi-like infatuation with the girl; her presence was helping him retain the loving, open, caring boy that had first come to Luke’s academy, what felt like so very long ago. 

But right now, it was just innocent longing. If something were to ... happen, between them, or if their ‘friendship’ were to at all _progress_ ... Luke was going to have a mess on his hands. A real problem.

“Solving problems is what I was made for, though,” Luke murmured to himself, yawning as he prepared to sink into sleep. “I can solve this one, too. I just need a little time.”

 _Great; but don’t get cocky, kid,_ a ghostly voice, Han’s voice, whispered in his mind.

And it was on that note that the old Jedi finally fell asleep, snoring into his pillow.

—-

“There, there, it’s alright,” Ben murmured, continuing to rock the girl back and forth in his arms. She let out a little snuffle against his sleeve, but after that, mercifully fell quiet.

Last week, the temple had received three new children from an orphanage on Korriban, whose caretakers had sent the children along to Luke, upon discovering their Force-sensitivity. The two oldest, 8 year old twin boys, had adjusted fairly quickly to life at the Temple. They, along with the third child, a 5 year old girl, had been placed in Ben’s Padawan class. But Korri, the girl, was having a difficult time coping. She missed the caretakers from the orphanage, and seemed frightened by her newly discovered gift.

It was after class on her fourth day, when she had just sat and done nothing again, that Ben decided to keep her after and talk to her. After some soothing words, the child fell apart, crying, in his arms.

“It’s alright to be afraid, you know,” he told her, patting her hair. “Being here is different and new, and you don’t know anyone yet. But, Korri, we’ve got some really nice kids here, and everyone is very friendly. You know the girl who sits in front of you, with the red hair?”

Korri nodded.

“Well, she’s just exactly your age. She came here last year, and she was scared, just like you are. But she talked to people and made a lot of new friends, and before she knew it, this place had become her home. The same thing will happen for you, once you give it a chance.”

“Do you promise?”, she asked in a wavering voice, wiping away tears with her sleeve.

Ben nodded. “I promise.”

At that moment, the girl he had been speaking about, Runa, walked back into the classroom, and up to them timidly.

“Hi, Korri,” she said, shyly. “Um, do you want to come with me, to evening meal?”, she asked, holding out her small hand.

Korri looked up at Ben. He smiled and leaned down, giving her a gentle hug. “Go on, child.”

So Korri took Runa’s hand, and the two walked together towards the dining hall.

Ben watched them go with a small sigh. “Why can’t all problems be solved so easily?”, he asked himself, as he began to head back to his hut. Why couldn’t things be as simple as somebody taking your hand and guiding you through the things that you feared?

Having no appetite, he decided to skip evening meal in lieu of exercise. He had been neglecting his morning run these past few days, and felt that he could be improved in other ways, as well. 

He hiked up to a clearing in the forest that he sometimes used for such purposes, and, looking around to be sure he was alone, slipped off his shirt. He spent the next hour physically training, including lifting the heavy rocks he used as makeshift weights, doing lunges and sprints around the circle, and as many pushups and sit-ups as he could tolerate. At the end of it, weak-legged and sweaty, he decided to head back down to the lake and jump in, maybe swim a few laps as a post-workout.

It being dark, he figured that nobody would likely be coming to surprise him, so he stripped off his pants as well as his shirt, and dove head-first into the water. He yelped quietly to himself; it was quite cold.

He glided through the chilly stillness like a fish, utilizing his arms and legs as he moved himself along in the dark. Eventually he climbed out onto the sandy dune, to rest. He put on his clothes, then pulled his knees up to his chin and sat, closing his eyes and listening to the sounds of the nightbirds singing out to one another. 

_This would be a good place to die,_ his mind whispered to him. _To just sink peacefully beneath the clear water. The fish would eat you, and perhaps someone would eat the fish. Isn’t that what Luke speaks of all the time? Symbiosis? A connection to all living things?_

He opened his eyes and tilted his head back, looking at the stars. So many of them, flooding out the night sky with silvers and golds.

When he had been younger, his mother would sit with him outside at night, teaching him how to find faces in the stars. After awhile, Ben could spot them almost as well as Leia could, and the two would spend hours outside, creating people out of the lights.

Ben could see a face now; the same face, multiplied over and over, written across the inky blackness: Rey’s.

 _You need to stop this, Ben,_ he told himself angrily. _Please ... just stop it. She’s a good friend to you, and that’s ALL. It ... it could never be anything more than that. And you don’t WANT it, to be anything more than that._

“That’s not true,” he answered himself quietly, hardly aware that he was speaking aloud. “If it was true, then why is she in your thoughts so much? Why does speaking to her feel more like ‘home’ than actually going home? Why is it like cold fire every time you so much as graze her shoulder? Why?”

“Why, what?”

Ben jumped, twisting his head around.

“Hi, Rey.”

“Hi, Ben,” she replied, cautiously approaching him. “Were you, um, talking to yourself?”

Ben nodded sheepishly. “I was. But don’t worry; I’m not crazy. I read somewhere that talking to oneself is a sign of intelligence.”

Rey chuckled and sat down beside him. “Well, if that’s true, you’re likely the most intelligent person I know.”

The two sat in companionable silence for a few moments, staring out at the water and the stars. After awhile, Rey turned towards him and said, softly, “It’s so beautiful tonight.”

Ben nodded. “It really is.”

“So ... have I told you my news, yet?”

He looked at her. “What news?”

Grinning, she said, “Master Skywalker said I’m ready to build my own lightsaber. He’s taking me to Ilum in a few days to pick out a crystal.”

“That’s wonderful, Rey!”

She nodded, then said, somewhat nervously, “I have to admit I’m a bit scared, though.”

“Of what?”

She sighed and stretched out carefully on her back, lacing her hands behind her head. “A saber is such a dangerous thing,” she said, quietly. “What if I cut my arm off? Or hurt someone else?”

“You don’t have to worry, Rey. Master Sifus teaches the lightsaber combat, and he’s an excellent instructor. You’re smart, and coordinated, and patient. You’ll be fine.”

Here he paused, snickering. “At any rate, take comfort in the fact that you can’t be any worse than the worst saber student here.”

“Really? Who’s that?”

“You’re looking at him.”

She sat fully back up now, in surprise. “Really? You?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Or, I don’t know, maybe I’m not being fair; I’ve improved a lot since I first made my saber. But in the beginning, I was too cocky with it. I didn’t think I needed to go through the drills, and one day I was trying out some moves that were far beyond my skill level, and I ... I paid the price.”

“What do you mean?”

“If ... if I show you, do you promise not to laugh?”

“Of course I won’t.”

Sighing, he turned his body towards her, and gingerly lifted up his shirt. She let out a soft gasp; down the left side of his body was a long red scar, running in a puckered line from his chest to the top of his thigh.

“Maker,” she said. “Does that hurt?”

“Sometimes, when I first wake up in the morning, it does. Otherwise, not so much.”

He rolled his shirt back down gently. It was quiet between them again for awhile, and then Rey said,

“If I show YOU something, do you promise not to laugh as well?”

“Promise.”

Slowly, she began unraveling the tan wraps that she always wore on her arms. When they were off, she held both arms out to Ben, her pale skin glinting in the moonlight. Now it was Ben’s turn to gasp; her forearms were fairly covered with deep bite marks, clearly from several different kinds of beasts. Unable to help it, he reached out and gently took hold of her arms, to better examine them.

“What happened?”

“Back when my parents and I used to scavenge the south mounds of Jakku, there was an abandoned field with all kinds of ships. The most valuable parts were always bits of engine, but it was hard for my parents to fit into the small spaces necessary to gain access, so, they’d send me. A lot of the time, there’s be animals, small ones like womp rats or mynocks, that made their homes in these places. I’d get bit a lot.”

He let go of her arms, feeling anger stirring in his chest. 

Your parents ... they realized that you were being bitten? And they STILL sent you in?”

Rey bit her lower lip, looked away, and nodded.

“Rey ...”, he began, trying to control his emotions, “I just ... I don’t understand. You always say how much you miss your parents, but from what little I know of them, it seems they treated you horribly. How ... why ...”

Understanding what he was asking, Rey faced him and said, “Because they’re my parents, Ben. You HAVE to love your parents.”

He reached out and took her arms again, his fingers softly caressing over the bites. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt like he might burst into tears. Seeing this, and feeling Rey’s feelings for two people who didn’t deserve it ...

“I don’t believe that,” he said after awhile, when he had gotten himself more under control. “I believe love is a gift, and that gift shouldn’t be given lightly. Not even to your own parents.”

“You don’t understand, Ben. If ... if I said I didn’t love my mom and dad, then it might mean that they don’t love me, either. And if they don’t love me, who else would?”

Without giving it any thought, acting purely on feeling, Ben pulled one of her arms towards him and kissed her wrist. Touching his lips to her skin was like setting off a warm explosion inside his brain. He moved from her wrist and kissed every sunken mark on her arm, then did the same to the other.

This entire time, she hadn’t moved, or tried to pull away her arms; it didn’t feel as though she even breathed. He looked up at her, his heart pounding, terrified of what he might see. Fear? Disgust? Anger?

Before he could catalog her expression, her small hands were on his face, pulling him forward. 

It was so soft, _so soft_ , that at first Ben wasn’t positive that anything had happened at all. And that was good; if nothing had happened, that meant it wasn’t too late. It wasn’t too late to stand up, to go back to his hut, to pretend that —

The second kiss was firmer, and it triggered such a strong spark of sensation that it was nearly painful. All pretense fell away, and he took her fully into his arms, finally surrendering himself to his feelings, and to Rey.

For once, the voices in his head were respectfully silent.


	7. Chapter 7

“I have to say it, kid; this is a surprise.”

Ben shrugged, and took another long pull of his punch.

A few days ago, Luke had sent Ben on a trip to Ryloth, giving him use of the Temple’s old, somewhat rickety ship, to pick up their monthly food supply from one of the planet’s Twi’lek vendors. In the past month, the Temple had gone far over its allotted budget, forcing Luke to try and find ways to cut down on the necessary expenses. One of the biggest finance-drains was the importation of food from their current source; two weeks ago, Luke had received about a dozen new students, mostly young children, meaning their food supply had to be increased. So Luke shopped around until he found someone willing to provide the same quality and quantity of produce, but for a lower price. Finding that it would be even cheaper if they picked up the order themselves rather than have it shipped in, Luke had sent Ben to complete this task.

Now, on his way back, he had sent a Comm to his father, asking if he wanted to meet up on Coruscant and have lunch, before Ben had to go back home.

Han had accepted, although he had been highly suspicious, as Ben had never initiated such a thing before. The two of them sat now, having ordered drinks while they waited for their food to be brought out.

“So ... dad,” Ben said after awhile, breaking the somewhat awkward silence, “Can I talk to you?”

Han set down his drink and leaned forward, nodding. “Of course.”

“About something ... private?”

Han nodded again, a serious expression on his face. “Yes. You can talk to me about _anything_ , son.”

The intensity was broken when the waiter brought out their food, setting two hot plates down in front of them. Ben watched the stream rise up and wiggle in front of his face for awhile, before saying,

“You remember about two months ago, when we were talking, and you said that if I ever had any questions for you, you could answer them? Questions about ... about women, and ... and things?”

A slow, wide smile spread across Han’s face, one that he was powerless to hide. His mind was now burning up with questions of his own, but he kept them back, lest he scare away his son from asking _his._ So rather than pry, he simply leaned back, took another swig of his drink, and said,

“Answering questions is part of the job description, Ben. I’m here for you.”

Still, Ben held back. “And you ... you won’t ask WHY I’m asking you, what I ask you? Or talk about this to mom?”

Han shook his head. “Between us, Benny, man to man. So ask away, I’m listening.”

—-

“Good, good; reach out with your feelings. Feel the energy of the objects around you. Visualize them, see them as they are. Now, carefully, walk towards me with your saber out. Don’t hit any of the items you see.”

Rey took a deep breath, ignited her saber, and did as Master Sifus told her.

“Remember, your saber is not just another tool; it is a part of you, forever connected to your life-Force. Don’t be afraid of it; visualize it as an extension of your own arm, your own spirit.”

With her eyes closed, and concentrating as hard as she could, she was able to perfectly picture all the obstacles in the dark room. She walked towards him, carefully avoiding all the objects in her path, until she was inches from him.

“Good!”, he praised, clearly pleased. “Well done, young lady. That’s all for today; tomorrow we’ll work on laser-training. You’re dismissed.”

Rey bowed her head and switched off her saber, walking slowly, thoughtfully into the late afternoon sunshine.

Part of her felt great; she was slowly but surely learning the thing she had dreaded most, lightsaber skills, and was doing a good job of it. But the other part of her felt melancholy, walking around in the warm air, alone. Her hand felt empty ... and she knew that it was because it was craving the strength of that other hand, the one that seemed made for hers:

Ben’s.

It seemed so long ago, that fateful night he had started by kissing her arms, and then moved on to her lips. Neither of them had had experience with REAL kissing before, and each, especially Rey, felt horribly awkward at their lack of finesse in the matter.

But Ben made her feel as though she was perfect. He kissed away her shame for the scars on her arms, he kissed away her doubts about not ever feeling like she was ‘enough’. Smart enough, talented enough, GOOD enough.

“I have wanted to do that for so long,” he had told her, when they’d parted from one another.

“I’m so glad that you finally did,” she had said back to him, putting her small fingertips on his face.

After that day, they made the decision that, good or bad, they were together. They belonged to each other, the way the stars belonged to the sky, or air belonged to lungs. Fate, the Force, SOMETHING had pushed them together, and it would take something even greater to rip them apart.

She knew it was wrong, according to Jedi standards at least, what they were doing. She knew it, and so did Ben. But at the same time, it felt so complete and so _right_ that it was overwhelming. Every touch, every smile, every kiss ...

“Like it was meant to happen,” she muttered to herself, walking along. “Like WE were meant to happen.” She paused and laughed to herself. “Oh, wonderful, now I’m even talking to myself, like he does.”

Keeping the secret was much more difficult than either had anticipated. They took great pains now, to never be seen standing too close to one another in public. To never sit near each other during meditation or group exercises. To always keep a person’s length apart from each other, when talking in the open.

Yet however complicated it was, the act seemed to be effective; nobody suspected what was going on. And, however bad or however wrong it might be, THAT was a wonderful thing; having something that only the two of them shared, a sweet secret kept hidden away from the rest of the galaxy.

Or _most_ of the galaxy.

Rey wasn’t positive, but she had an inkling of suspicion that Luke knew all about Rey and his nephew. That he knew, but he intended to do _nothing_ about the situation, in fact acting as though it didn’t exist. But why? For what purpose?

Or maybe she was just being paranoid. But still ... there was that moment in class, when Luke was giving a lecture on the temptations of the dark side, and she had felt like his eyes were lingering on her more than anybody else. But that wasn’t fair, was it? It wasn’t right, in Rey’s mind, to equate the dark side with something as pure as falling in love. The philosophy was that love leads to attachment, attachment leads to jealousy, jealousy, to anger, and so on. But what was really WRONG, about attaching yourself to another person? Knowing that somebody else could understand you, in a way no one else did? That someone else could hold your hand when you felt alone, or kiss you when the clouds in your mind caused you to become lost in yourself? Wasn’t that the entire basis of life? Wasn’t that the purpose of humanity; to form connections, and spread love to others?

She had asked Luke, once, how old the Jedi texts were. The answer had been thousands of years. _**Thousands**_. And in all that time, the philosophies, the idealism hadn’t once been changed. Rey thought that it needed to be, for the betterment of everybody that toiled under this religion. 

She also believed, and discussed with Ben on more than one occasion, her thoughts that the light side and the dark side of the Force weren’t as black and white as Luke made them out to be. Luke spoke so often about balance in the Force; but how could balance be achieved when only one side (the light side) was adhered to? There had to be a way to walk in-between the two universes, to co-exist in the mythical gray.

But until a change could be made, until some kind of life was attainable where they could both live in the open, AND continue on their respective Jedi journeys ... they simply endeavored to bear their secret in silence.

The biggest risk that they took, was at night. More often than not, Ben would sneak into her hut, and stay with her until the sunrise. They weren’t doing anything with each other during those long nighttime hours stronger than kissing, though; neither of them felt ready or prepared to take it further. But they found comfort in each other’s warmth, and laying in each other’s arms in the darkness, talking, laughing, sleeping, dreaming —

And _what_ dreams they had, in particular, Ben. She hadn’t known it before, but the boy was plagued by the most gruesome nightmares imaginable. The first time he’d woken up panting and half-crying beside her, she’d been horribly startled. He refused to talk about them at first, telling her that he was just a restless sleeper. But time and Rey’s gentle coaxing had gotten him to open up about the bad dreams, and she tried to help him as best she could, by talking him through them. And knowing his dreams explained a lot more about Ben than his actual words ever could. In them, Rey could understand the fear he had of not being in control of his life, the worry that he might fall to the wayward path of anger and hopelessness like his own grandfather had. It put together a lot of the puzzle for her; such as why he had seemed ready to jump, the night she had met him. And how often he talked to himself. And why it seemed like he had such a hard time just letting go of the things.

And he helped her with her own dreams, as well. All of the fear, the anger, the confusion over her parents seemed to slip out of her subconscious at night, and more than once she’d wake up crying and hurt. Ben would pull her close in his warm strong arms, he’d stroke her hair and soothe her, drying her tears and calming her until she could sleep again.

The hardest and most hated part of the day for either of them, was sunrise. Ben had to rise early enough to sneak back to his own hut before anyone could observe him, and then they had to spend the long day still pretending that they were just friends.

Like now.

Rey rounded the corner and could see that the ship was back, meaning Ben was back from his trip to pick up the food supply. She could see him, his shirt off, his lightly-muscled body glinting with sweat as he and several other students walked up and down the ship’s ramp, unloading the heavy boxes into the kitchen. She wanted nothing more than to run to him, to wrap herself around him, to cover his face and chest with kisses.

As it was, all she could do was catch his eye, smile, give a little wave, and continue on her way.

_**I missed you.** _

She grinned as she walked along. This was something else they had been working on: communicating through their thoughts. It was difficult at first, but now, they could do so almost effortlessly.

 _You can’t have missed me,_ she replied, as she entered her hut. _You were only gone a few days._

_**Too bad; I missed you anyways.** _

_So sweet. How was your trip?_

_**Good. I’ll tell you all about it later. Are you going to evening meal?** _

_No. One of the new girls, her parents came and brought her a big plate of chocolate puff-cake. She gave me a rather large piece; do you want to share?_

_**Yes! I’ll be there as soon as I can slip away.** _

_Well, hurry it up; I’m hungry!_

— -

Hours later, and Ben and Rey, having finished their cake, were getting ready to settle down for the evening. 

“You know,” he said, as he laid down on her pallet, “If you ever get tired of me being here all the time, all you have to do is tell me so. I wouldn’t get mad, or offended, I swear.”

Rey rolled her eyes at him, while pulling the bands out of her hair. She sat cross-legged beside him, and began brushing out the mahogany waterfall over her back. He reached up every so often to touch one of the silky strands, cradling it between thumb and forefinger. 

“Maker, yes, Ben, I’m SICK of you,” she said, in her most sarcastic tone. Leave. Now.”

“Fine,” Ben replied, his teasing smirk playing over his full lips. He started to get up, but Rey jumped on him and tackled him back to the pallet, straddling his waist and holding him down by the wrists.

“You’re not going anywhere, Solo. At least, not until you pay up what you owe me.”

“What do I owe you?”

“For starters, you owe me at least one kiss for every hour of every day that you’ve been gone this week.”

“That sounds fair,” he said, closing his eyes and puckering his lips. “Should I count them out?”

“Yes,” Rey said, before leaning down and giving him the first kiss. “That’s one.”

“Two ... three ... four ...”

“Nineteen, twelve ... oh, kriff!”, Rey exclaimed, giving Ben a mischievous smile. “I was never that good at counting; I guess now we’ll have to start all over.”

—-

“Rey?”

The light tapping and the voice came from beyond her hut’s door. Rey scrambled up from Ben’s arms in a panic; nobody ever came to her door THIS early, and she couldn’t risk anyone stumbling in to find Ben there. Ben sat up too, his eyes wildly darting around the little space for possible places to hide.

“Y-yes?”, she called out, her voice quavering.

“Master Luke says you have visitors at the Temple.”

“Thank you. I’ll be there in a few moments.”

The person left, and Rey let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, she felt very confused; who in the galaxy would be coming to visit her, and at the crack of dawn, no less? Unless ...

She quickly got dressed and brushed out the hectic snarls from her hair. Ben watched her, and could feel her anxiety floating in the air around them.

“Do you think it’s —“

“It’s a good possibility,” Rey answered his thought, quickly looking herself over in her small glass. 

“I can come with you, if you need me to. I can think up an excuse to be at the Temple this early.”

But Rey shook her head. “No, no; if it IS them, I need to face them alone.”

He watched her go, and then quickly got himself dressed, preparing to go back to his own hut. He stepped outside ... and found himself face to face with Ziir.

The two looked at each other for a long time, and then Ben went past him to his own hut, closing the door softly behind himself. He should have felt scared; he could read in Ziir’s thoughts, how eager he was to spread around what he had seen, how anxious to bring this matter to Master Skywalker. He should feel scared, and he DID ... but not about Ziir.

He was scared about Rey. And the feeling in his gut that _something_ was about to change.

— -

“You can’t.”

It was after class hours, and Rey had gone to seek out Ben in the empty Padawan room. 

The day had been a whirlwind of emotions for her. Earlier, when she had stepped into the Temple and walked to Master Luke’s office, she had known. She KNEW that it was her parents, although their purpose for being there, she could not fathom.

“Rey!”, her mother had exclaimed, rushing to fold the girl in her arms. Rey remained stiff in her grip, unable to yield to this bout of affection.

“Just look at my little Ewok,” her father had said, also embracing his daughter. “You’ve grown so beautiful that I hardly recognize you.”

Master Luke, who had been watching the reunion with trepidation, stood up and said that he would leave, to give them some privacy. When he was out of the room, Rey turned to them, and said, somewhat harshly,

“Why are you here?”

Her parents looked at one another, and Rey’s father reached out to hold his wife’s hand, soothing her.

“We ... Rey, we came to ... to apologize. We’ve missed you so much, baby, we had to come see if —“

“You, missed me?”, Rey interrupted, repeating their words in a flat monotone. “You ... you left me here. Alone. Scared out of my mind. You dragged me out, you called me a witch. And now you’re sitting there with the nerve to say that you MISSED me?!”

They were silent for a long beat, and then Rey’s mother said, softly, “You don’t understand, baby. We HAD to do that, we HAD to act that way with you.”

“Excuse me?”

Her father stood up and put his hand on Rey’s shoulder. She cringed from his touch, but felt powerless to move away.

“That day ... the day you stopped the metal from hitting our feet ... Rey, we had seen you before. We had seen you when you thought you were alone, in your bed, making things come to you by pointing to them.”

“We thought it was just a harmless thing, something inconsequential,” Rey’s mother supplied from her chair. “But then with the metal — that piece was SO heavy, Rey. But you stopped it. And your reflexes were so quick, you were so calm —“

“We could see that you were powerful,” Rey’s father rejoined, thoughtfully. “Much more powerful than we’d thought, more powerful than perhaps even YOU were aware of. And we thought, we can’t let her gift go to waste in the deserts of Jakku. We needed to put you where you could be trained, where you could be with others like you.”

“But ... you dragged me out. You called me a witch! You —“

Reys mother got up and put both arms around her daughter. She was crying, her tears soaking Rey’s neck.

“We had to do that! We had to try and make you hate us! If we hadn’t, you never would have left us. You would have stayed with us, and your talent would have gone to waste!”

Rey’s father also put his arms around his girl, huskily clearing his throat before he said, “There’s not a day that’s gone by, that we haven’t thought of you, baby. I ... I know it’s a lot to ask, but we want you to come back home with us, for a visit. Just a chance for us to talk, to catch up, to reconnect. We spoke about it with Master Skywalker, and he said it was alright, IF you agreed.”

Rey looked back and forth between her mother and father, unable to believe that this was truly happening. She had dreamt so often that her parents would come back for her, and now that they were here ... there was only one possible decision that she could have made.

She was here, now, informing Ben of her choice.

“You can’t,” he repeated, his fists clenched. “You can’t go with them, you can’t trust them after what they did!”

Rey reached out and took hold of his hands, trying to calm him. Touching him, could feel how much anger was boiling beneath the surface, and she quickly let go, startled.

“Ben — I explained to you, what they told me. Why they did what they did. I —“

Ben turned away and let loose with a stream of curse words that one would only hear in the farthest regions of the galaxy. Rey took a step back, feeling somewhat scared. When he turned around to face her, his eyes were wild, and he looked like a rabid animal just barely holding itself back from attacking.

“You CAN’T,” he said through gritted teeth. “I can’t let you. I WON’T let you!”

“Ben, it’s only for a week. It’s just a —“

He clenched his fists, and suddenly, three of the mats that his Padawans sat on inexplicably ripped straight in half. The noise was so loud that Rey jumped, and took another step away from Ben.

“I don’t care if it’s a week, a day, or a single hour,” Ben told her, advancing on her. “You can’t go. I can’t let you go.”

Rey let a few moments of silence pass between them, her heart pounding, before saying, as calmly as she could, 

“Look at this. Look at what us being together has done to you, Ben. This ... I ...”, she stopped, shaking her head, unsure of how to express her thoughts on the matter. Glancing at Ben, she could see he had calmed some, but not by much.

“Maybe it’s better if I go away ... and just stay away.”

All the anger fell off of Ben’s face, now replaced with a crushing, choking fear. 

“Stay away?”, he repeated, in a weak voice. He found he had no strength in his legs so he sat down on the floor. “You ... I would die if you left, Rey. My heart would stop beating.”

“Ben ... let’s not kid ourselves. What we’ve done, the Jedi don’t do. We’ve contaminated each other, but ... but it’s not too late for YOU. If I disappear, you can go back to being Luke’s prodigy student, with no more shameful distractions. In a few years, you can be a Master Jedi. Hells, maybe you’ll even be in charge of this Temple.”

“Rey —“

“And you know what else? Even if it hadn’t happened, if WE hadn’t happened ... I would never be as good as you. I’m nothing, I come from nothing. A scavenger who can perform a few magic tricks, that’s all.”

He jumped back to his feet and threw his arms around her, trembling all over at the thought of losing her. 

“Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, feeling the tears start in his eyes. “ _Please._. Go visit your parents but you have to come back, you HAVE to. We can find a way to make this work, we —“

“How, Ben? Are we going to spend the next 20 years sneaking around like this? Afraid to so much as brush against each other in public because of what others will say? Are you going to be a Jedi Grand Master who teaches idealism to his students during the day, then commits the ultimate hypocrisy by coming home to a secret wife at night?”

When Ben couldn’t answer her, she sighed and pulled herself out of his arms. “My parents will be back any minute, and I still have to pack,” she said, slowly heading for the door. 

“I love you,” he called out softly behind her. She paused, but didn’t turn around. 

And she couldn’t say it back.

“It’s only a week, Ben. We ... we can talk about this more when I come back.”

A shuddering coldness spread all over Ben’s body when the door closed behind her ... because more and more, he got the impression that she truly didn’t intend to come back.

He would have just collapsed on the floor, if the door hadn’t reopened and Ziir hadn’t come in, informing him with a sick glee that Master Skywalker wished to speak to him.

“About?” Ben asked dully, in truth not caring much one way or another.

“You know what it’s about, Ben. We both do.”

—-

“How is that RIGHT? How is that JUST, or FAIR?”, Ziir asked heatedly. He pointed his finger at Ben, “Master Skywalker, you’ve taught us, always, that everyone in this temple is of equal standing. That we’re all beholden to the same rules and principles. So why is Ben allowed to indulge in a ... a romantic relationship, as such?”

Ben had been correct, that Ziir would waste no time in telling Luke that he had seen Ben leave Rey’s hut earlier that morning. Now he was standing there, making all sorts of accusations, bringing up everything he had ever seen the two of them do that had raised suspicion in him.

“It’s not romantic, and it’s not a relationship!”, Ben shouted at him, lying, still trying to protect himself and Rey. “Rey is my friend. What’s wrong with that?? We share common interests, and we enjoy each other’s company. That is the basis of friendship, isn’t it?”

Ziir stood up, his face burning a dark, angry red. “Do you take me for a fool? Do you take ANY of us, including Master Skywalker, for being fools? You think nobody can see the way you look at each other? The way you touch each other? You think nobody else can _feel_ your feelings towards one another? It may have started off as ‘friendship’, Solo, but clearly something has changed. And your refusal to acknowledge this laughs in the face of everything Master Luke has endeavored to teach us.”

Ben’s fists were clenched, and he could feel the hot anger rising up his throat. The room around him started to blur and waver, and he knew that if he couldn’t calm himself, he would destroy something. Luke must have felt it too, as he quickly stood up, looking alarmed.

“We ... Ben, Ziir, both of you have brought valid items to my attention. Ziir, you are correct in that if a romantic liaison were occurring between Ben and Rey, both should be subject to the appropriate discipline. But, honestly, I have yet to SEE this ‘love’ which you’re speaking of, Ziir. The Jedi way teaches us to exhibit compassion for others’ mistakes, rather than judgement, and in believing in the good of others before the bad.”

Ziir scowled, and nodded, seemingly accepting Luke’s words. He turned to leave, then stopped at the door, saying, softly,

“You say that, because he’s your nephew. He’s a Skywalker, and that puts him above the rest of us, doesn’t it?”

Before Luke could respond, Ziir continued on his way out, slamming the door behind him.

Luke sat back down and put his head in his hands, sighing. “What a mess,” he murmured. 

“Is that true?”

Luke looked up at Ben, who was still standing by the door, shaking with held-in rage.

“Is what true?”

“Are you excusing my behavior, because I’m your nephew?”

“There is no ‘behavior’ that I’m excusing. Rey came here under terrible circumstances, and was lonely. You were lonely as well. You found each other, and your friendship took away some of the hurt from both of you. That’s ALL. If others, if Ziir sees that as something more, it’s simply because they don’t understand. They don’t —“

“They don’t?”, Ben interrupted, softly, deadly calm. “Because I’d say they understand perfectly. I’d say that they’re seeing the way Rey and I look at each other. I’d say they’re seeing how wrong it is, how inappropriate.”

“Ben —“

“I’d say that YOU see it, too. You see it but you don’t want to admit it. You won’t admit it because doing so would admit you’ve failed as a teacher, that you’ve failed to pass on your Jedi ideals to the students you’ve sweated over for nearly a decade. Hatred, lies, passion — all the makings of the Dark side. All of the makings of the Sith, of your FATHER.”

“Ben!”

“And you’re afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid of that, and you’re afraid of ME. That’s why you and mom took so long to tell me the damn TRUTH about myself, and our family.”

“Ben, I didn’t —“

“Because you knew, didn’t you? You knew it was highly in the realm of possibility for me to become another grandpa, another Vader. That I could fall in love, just like he did with your mother. That I could have so much anger and confusion inside of me that it eats me from the inside out.”

Ben became aware that he was crying, and he sat back down, burying his face in his hands.

“Or, oh, Maker, this is all my fault!”, he sobbed brokenly. “Her parents came and I lost it. I made a nerfherder out of myself, I refused to listen, and now, she’s gone. She said it was just for a visit but I saw it in her eyes, she might never come back. I feel so ... I feel like my entire body is dying around me!”

He thought for sure that Luke would get up and leave him, that he’d be disgusted with Ben for this angry, confessional meltdown. 

Instead, Luke got up and cradled Ben’s head to his chest, soothing him with low sounds. Luke’s robes were rough and scratchy against Ben’s cheeks, but Ben didn’t care: he needed this. He had needed this for quite some time.

When he had calmed down some, Luke asked him, softly, “No more secrets, Ben. Between either of us, no more. We’re family, and we’re going to find a way to fix this, I promise.”

Ben looked up at him tearfully. “ _How?_ ”

But Luke had yet to find the answer, for that one.


	8. Chapter 8

“Dinner is ready, sweetheart.”

Ben sighed and turned over in his bed, facing the wall. “Save me a plate for later, please. I’m not really hungry right now.”

Leia waited a beat, and then came further into her son’s room. 

“You said that at breakfast, too. And lunch. Let’s get some food in you, Okay? Even just a few bites.”

Ben just sighed and repeated his statement, hoping that she would go.

The past several months had seemed like a never-ending nightmare to Ben, one that he couldn’t wake from, no matter how hard he tried.

True to her word, Rey had indeed come back after her week visiting her parents ... but only to retrieve the rest of her belongings from her hut. She had had a long talk with Master Luke, explaining that her parents’ trade business had expanded, and that she felt she would be more useful helping them, than attempting to be a Jedi. Luke, although it greatly saddened him, had conceded that he understood and respected her position.

“If things should ever change, Rey, I want you to know that this place, this temple will always be a second home for you.”

She had smiled ruefully at this, saying, “ _You’ve_ been like a second _father_ to me, Master. I ... I could never fully ... “

Instead of finishing her thought, she’d thrown her arms around him, squeezing him as tightly as she could. Then she’d turned around and walked quickly out of his office, before her resolve could weaken. She needed to do this, she needed to walk away before she could ruin Ben anymore than she already had.

She had gone around to the many huts, circling and saying goodbye to those that she had come to think of as family for the past year. She was taking her time, being slow and methodical, because she was rationing her energy for the hardest goodbye of all.

Her conversation with Ben had been so painful that she could feel the sting of it physically. The two had sat in his hut, and she slowly, calmly explained her plans to him. He’d listened, he’d nodded ... but speaking to him was like speaking to a cold brick wall. His refused to look directly at her, and his expression remained unchanged no matter what her words were. He didn’t even twitch, when she’d started to sob. 

Towards the end of their one-sided talk, she’d gotten up and put her arms around him, still crying. But he remained so rigid and unyielding that it was like embracing a statue. But touching him had revealed so much anger, and pain, and hatred bubbling just beneath his calm surface.

As she turned to go, he said, very softly,

“Rey?”

She turned around quickly, eagerly, thinking that he would soften, and give her a kind word to remember him by.

“Yes?”

Looking directly at her, he said, “Your parents threw you away like garbage. They did it once, and they’ll do it again. But when they let you go a second time, please, no matter what Luke told you, don’t come back here.”

Her eyes widened; his words were like being slapped in the face. Her mind couldn’t begin to fathom the words necessary to respond to him; so she simply turned and continued out of the hut. She didn’t look back once, on her way to her parents’ ship.

And that was it.  
She was gone.

To his credit, Ben was able to hold himself together much longer than anyone could have predicted. He still taught his class, he still attended his own lessons. He was never late for morning or evening meditation. 

Yet, slowly, _slowly_ , he was deteriorating. Whatever calmness he displayed on the outside was no match for the turmoil of feeling raging through his spirit. He had put up a wall to Rey so that when she said goodbye, it wouldn’t be able to hurt him as much. He’d done it out of self-preservation, but now, he was having trouble taking that wall down again. His body was crying out desperately to release all of his pent-up feelings, but the wall wouldn’t crumble, no matter how much he tried to chip away at it.

“You must miss your girlfriend, eh, Solo?”, Ziir had said to him one evening at meal-time, trying to provoke a reaction out of him.

Speaking calmly, mechanically, Ben had replied, “What Rey and I did was wrong. It wasn’t the Jedi way. Neither was the lying that went along with it. You were right, you know, to bring it to Master Luke’s attention.”

Ziir had been visibly taken aback by Ben’s attitude towards the situation. He had expected more of that heated anger, not the unemotional, defeated way that Ben was freely admitting to his wrongdoings.

Luke had been mentally monitoring his nephew for weeks since Rey’s departure. It was unsettling but he could truly feel the presence of the dark side, creeping up slowly, it’s jaws open and it’s sharp teeth gnashing, waiting to fully devour Ben. The feeling got stronger every day, until one day, unable to just keep quiet anymore, he called Ben into his office.

After some light talk about Ben’s Padawans, Luke dove into the heart of the matter, by saying, “I wanted to apologize to you, Ben.”

“Apologize? For what?”

“I told you weeks ago that I’d help you, that we’d find a way to fix this. I told you —“

“There’s nothing to fix, Master. She’s gone, and I’m fine.”

But Luke shook his head, coming out from behind his table to put a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“You’re not fine. I can feel that you’re not. Ben, I ... I sent a message to Han. He’ll be here by the end of the day, tomorrow. He ... well, I think it would be good for you to go home for awhile. To get away from here, and spend some time with family.”

Ben sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Master, I really don’t feel that —“

“I’ve already spoken to Master Fedcis, he’s agreed to take over your Padawan class while you’re away. Just for a little while, Ben. 2 weeks, maybe a bit more. Time to clear your head, son. We all need that sometimes. I spoke to your mother, and she’s taking a bit of time away from work, to be home with you.”

Ben nodded. “Very well, Master.”

So now Ben was back home. He found that his uncle had been right; a change of scenery had been good for him, brushing away some of the clouds in his head and allowing him to breathe easier. He also found that some of his wall had fallen away, allowing him to feel sadness. Not the greatest of emotions, but a remarkable improvement over the horrible muted blankness that he had been living with for so long.

Leia had spent a great deal of time with Ben these past weeks, trying to soothe him without encroaching too much on his privacy. A hard line to walk, and one that she faced now, as she tried to coax him to eat. Today was worrisome; he had been in bed most of the day, claiming that he was “just so tired”; but Leia knew better. It was depression, slowly but surely creeping out and grabbing hold of her son.

So she took a chance and started talking to him about the topic she’d been trying so hard to avoid.

“Baby ... I know you’re hurting, over Rey. I know that you’re suffering, and that kills me. I —“

“Oh, what do you care?”, Ben asked her listlessly. “You thought we shouldn’t have been together in the first place.”

“I never said —“

“You didn’t have to. That week we came to visit, you were practically shouting it in your mind. You thought she was distracting me from fulfilling my destiny.” He paused, letting out a short, bitter laugh. “Well, I guess you were right. But seeing as how she’s gone, I guess you can sleep easy at night, huh? Your boy will be a Jedi, Rey has her family back, and everyone will live happily ever after.”

Leia was quiet for a long time after Ben spoke, and Ben didn’t bother to fill the silence with words. Ben’s pain was so strong that it flooded the room to the point of bursting, making Leia feel sick to her stomach.

After a few moments to collect herself, she sat down beside him and timidly put her hand on his back, trying to soothe him. He immediately cringed at her touch; but she didn’t let go.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” she said, softly. “Your dad and I ...”, she started, then stopped, sighing to herself. “No, that’s not right. I was going to say that Han and I made some mistakes with you, but that’s not really true. Han didn’t make a mistake, **I** did. He said that you needed to be free to make your own choices, he said that sending you to Luke was wrong —“

She stood up and began pacing around the room, still speaking in her soft voice. 

“I made a mistake in not telling you about Vader, too. But I was ... I was just so afraid, Ben. Do you remember, around 5 or 6 years ago, when I took a vacation from the senate?”

Ben sat up and nodded. “I remember. We all went to Naboo for a few weeks. But what does that have to do with anything?”

She sat back beside him, looking down at her hands folded in her lap.

“That was no vacation; I had been temporarily removed from the senate.”

Ben’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really? Why?”

Leia’s hands had begun to tremble, and she laid them flat out on her knees, to steady them.

“Somebody found out that Vader was my father,” she said, sighing. “It hadn’t been just a secret from YOU, you know; I never told that to _anybody_. The only people that knew were me, your dad, and Luke. But someone found out, and my worst fear came true, Ben. My friends, my colleagues, people that I’ve known for years and years all looked at me differently. They said, the daughter of Darth Vader shouldn’t be allowed to have a say in what went on in the galaxy. That the Skywalker blood shouldn’t be in a position to contaminate another generation of lives. It caused such a discord that they removed me until they could figure out the right course of action to take.”

Ben took that in solemnly, thinking back to those few weeks on Naboo. How unusually quiet she had been. How withdrawn. The long hours his parents had spent behind closed bedroom doors, speaking in hushed tones.

“So what happened?”

“I was lucky, in that I had some good friends, some TRUE friends, that helped to argue my case for me. So I got through it, son. I got through it, I was welcomed back in the senate, but it left a scar. And with you —“

She paused, feeling herself start to choke up.

“With you, baby, I didn’t want that to happen to you. To have people judge you before they even knew you, over something that you couldn’t help. So I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to have this family’s dark legacy hanging over your head. And I sent you to Luke, so that you could learn balance, and control. So that maybe you could find some kind of happiness in life, a place where you could use and explore your tremendous gifts.”

She started to cry, softly, into her hands.

“I made mistakes, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You’re my only child, you’re my soul, and I wanted all the best things for you. I just — I just —“

Ben leaned over and put his arms around his mother, and they held each other. Ben hadn’t let Leia fully hug him since he was a child, and he was mildly surprised at how good it felt ...

... and how _much_ he’d needed her to.

“I’m not sure, mom, what I want to be in life, or where. If ... if I ultimately come to the decision that I can’t be a Jedi ...”, he began, still clutching her.

She interrupted him and kissed his cheek. “I will be so proud of you, no matter what you choose, baby. I’m ALREADY so kriffing proud of you.”

Ben smiled and pulled back, wiping away an errant tear as he said, “ _Kriffing_? Since when do you curse?”

“I suppose your father has rubbed off on me,” she said, and they both burst into laughter. 

“Now come on, speaking of your dad, we’ve left him alone with the food out there for far too long; we’ll be lucky to get a spare crumb.”

— -

“I’m leaving.”

Luke stood in the doorway of Ben’s hut, watching as his nephew threw his clothing into a small satchel. 

Ben had arrived back from his parents’ home at the beginning of the week, and, like Luke had hoped, the boy seemed to have pulled himself out of the shadows a bit. He was cheerful, smiling; he even started coming to evening meals again, sitting and animatedly talking with the others.

So this, was completely unexpected.

“Leaving?”, Luke asked, coming all the way into Ben’s hut. “What do you mean, leaving?”

“I’m leaving. Denjo’s parents are coming to take him for a weekend visit; he sent them a message and they agreed to give me a lift to Jakku.”

“ _Jakku?_ ”

Ben stopped packing and turned to face Luke.

“Uncle, I had a dream last night. You ... you’re aware of the kind of dreams I have. I know you are, I know you’ve sensed them a number of times.”

Luke reluctantly nodded.

“Well, last night was like no dream I’ve ever had. Rey was in it. We were standing out by the lake, in the sunshine. She was wearing a dress, a white one, with a train that went all the way down the forest path. We were holding hands, and she kissed me.” Here he paused, laughing. “I know how trivial that sounds, but if you could have felt what I felt — this is it. I’ve been confused for so long about what I want in life. Now, I know. I’m completely and unequivocally SURE, that Rey is my destiny. So I’m leaving. I need to go to her. If the choice is as simple as being with her or living without her, there IS no choice.”

“Ben —“

“Uncle ... please. I love this girl. I love her and I can’t just let her go.”

“Ben —“

“I know, I know it’s wrong, that this goes against the Jedi code, and I’m disappointing you. If you chose to expel me I’d understand, and I wouldn’t harbor any ill feelings towards you. But I NEED to go after her. I need to talk to her, to tell her how I feel, even if she rejects me. But I have to TRY. Please don’t try and stop me.”

“Ben! Maker, let me get a word in, kid,” Luke interrupted, shaking his head. “I’m not going to try and stop you; I’m going with you.”

“W-What?”

“I’m going with you. Rey is like a daughter to me, and she belongs here, the way you belong here.”

“But ... But ... the rules ... the Jedi code ...”

“I’ve been speaking of it with my fellow masters,” Luke said, slowly, “And we think, perhaps a change is necessary. We’re thinking of opening up our doors to _anyone_ who wishes to learn the Jedi arts, without the requirement of coming to train simply to be a Jedi. Anyone who has a connection to the Force and wishes to learn more about their gift, should be welcomed here, without having to choose between their education and making a commitment to another person.”

Ben sat down on his pallet with a thump, unable to cope with what he was hearing. Was he dreaming again? How could it be possible?

Reading his thoughts, Luke lowered himself to the floor beside him, and said,

“It’ll be difficult, I’m sure; we’ve been using a philosophy that dates back thousands of years, after all. But I feel the biggest problem with the Jedi of the past, was their ability to adapt to changing times. We speak so much about balance, yet we steadfastly cling to one side of an equation without giving the other a chance. And it needs to change.”

“So ... so Rey —“

“I want nothing more than for Rey to rejoin us. She was a fast, brilliant student, and in time, if she wished, I can see her being an instructor here. But Ben, if we go to her, and if she decides she wishes to remain with her parents — you need to accept it. WE need to accept it. Alright?”

Ben nodded solemnly. “Whatever she chooses, I’ll support it. I promise I will. But I couldn’t live with myself, if I didn’t give it my all, to try and bring her back.”

Luke smiled and ruffled Ben’s hair, something that he used to do when Ben was a boy. 

“When do we leave?”

—-

“Excuse me, can you help us?”

Ben and Luke had left for Jakku by the first light of dawn, but travel had been so long that they hadn’t reached their destination until nearly nightfall. When they had landed on the outskirts of the biggest town, a place called Yessel Flats, Luke had been unable to stop the smile from spreading across his face.

“This place, it reminds me so much of Tattooine,” he said wistfully, as the sand crunched beneath their feet. 

“Why do you sound sad about that?,” Ben asked, wiping sweat from his face. Even with the absence of the sun, it was quite humid out. “I thought you hated Tattoine?”

“I did. But you know, sometimes, if you’re away from something you hate for a long time, you slowly start to love it again.”

Ben nodded thoughtfully. “I hope that’s true; if it is, maybe I’ve got a shot to make Rey love ME, again.”

“Rey doesn’t hate you, Ben,” Luke said, shaking his head. 

“You don’t know, uncle. You don’t know the horrible things I said to her, the day she left. You don’t —“

Luke put his hand on Ben’s shoulder, going it a firm squeeze. 

“No matter what was said, or not said, there’s always a chance to set things right again. We’re here to take that chance. Okay?”

Ben nodded, and they continued on. They asked around the people sitting outside their doorsteps in the warm night air, asking about Rey’s parents. Eventually they struck pay dirt when a woman told them that Rey’s parents owned a little operation on the outskirts of the desert. They were there now, talking to this tall, somewhat large man outside the gates.

“That depends, what are you looking for?”

“People in town told us about this place, said there was a flat square building with a yard outside. Said it belonged to two former junk traders from Yessel Flats; is this the place?”

The man nodded. “It is. I work here, security patrol. If you’re looking to trade, I’m afraid the Hub is closed tonight. You’re welcome to go have a drink, though.”

“Hub?”

“That part over there,” he said, pointing towards the fenced-in yard, “Is what they call the Hub. It’s closed now but in the daytime, there’s not a busier place in all of Jakku. People come from all over to trade; you can get things here you can’t get nowhere else in the galaxy.”

He took several shuffling steps and pointed to the loud, brightly lit building on the opposite end of the courtyard. “That’s the Cantina. S’fairly new; they just had it built maybe 2, 3 weeks ago. Made so much money from the Hub they invested it out into more. They —“

“What about their daughter?”, Ben interrupted, somewhat impatiently. “They have a girl, about my age. Have you seen her? Does she work in the Cantina with them?”

“You mean, eh, what’s her name ... Rey? Yeah I know who she is; such a pretty little thing. Nice, too; she’s the one who got me this job. Found me begging for food at the town marketplace and brought me home, introduced me to her father. Security patrol ain’t much, I suppose, but it sure beats starving. It —“

“Where is she?!”, Ben interrupted again, angrily. Luke put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, before explaining “We’ve come a long way to see her, and I’m afraid my nephew here is a bit impatient. So if you could point us in her direction, or let her know we’re here ...”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

Ben’s fists clenched and his face burned red, but before he could open his mouth, Luke was asking, “Why not?”

“Little lady ain’t here no more.”

“You mean she’s stepped out?”

The man shook his head. He pulled a pack of smoke sticks from his pocket and lot one. He held out the pack to Luke, then Ben, but each declined, eager to hear the rest of the man’s explanation.

“No,” he finally said, blowing a cloud of smoke towards the sky, “I mean she ain’t here no more, period.”

Ben felt all the air go out of his lungs, and it was only Luke’s hand on his back, supporting him, that kept him upright.

“What happened to her?”

The man looked around nervously. “Look, like I said, I just got this job, and I needed it bad. I can’t risk losing it by telling the owners’ personal business.”

“I promise you, whatever you tell us will remain strictly between us,” Luke said, and Ben could feel that he was reaching out with the Force, to try and sway the man’s mind. It worked; he took another deep drag of his smoke-stick, before saying,

“Well, you know, they didn’t treat the girl so good. Awful mean to her, calling her names, even in front of the customers. I was talking with some of the workers who been here awhile longer, said they actually sent the girl away to some fancy Jedi academy, thinking it would help ‘em out.”

“How would Rey learning how to use the Force help THEM?”, Ben questioned, confused.

The man coughed, dropping his smoke-stick to the ground and cruising it out beneath his boot. “Well, I think they figgered the girl would have all kinds of mind-magic by now, and be a good personal bodyguard for them. And the ... the reading minds thing, that’s good, too. It’s a lot easier to fool other people, you know, if you know what they’re thinking first. But I heard she wouldn’t do it, didn’t want to hurt nobody.”

“That’s all they wanted her for?”, Luke asked, and the heartbreak was quite evident in his voice. “A ... a bodyguard?”

“Little more’n that, I’d guess. That gal could lift really heavy stuff without touchin’ it too. That helps, ‘specially when you get as much product moving’ through as those two do. Saves money on labor, you know.”

“And you really don’t know what happened to her?”

The man shrugged. “Can’t be sure. One of the barkeeps told me they heard yellin’ late at night, and then the girl was gone the next day. My guess: she ran. Can’t say I blame her; this kinda life isn’t no life for such a pretty young girl. And one that’s talented to boot.”

“Do you have any idea at all, where she might have run to? Is there anywhere on this planet that she might have gone?”

The man shook is head doubtfully. “I wouldn’t think. If this girl wanted to hide, there’s not a place on Jakku she wouldn’t be seen by someone who knows her parents. No; I’m guessin’ she snuck off-world on one of the freighters.”

Luke thanked the man for his time ...

.... but Ben couldn’t speak; he was shaking. He was trembling so hard that he could swear the ground was moving with him. He made a reflective grab for his lightsaber; he would end them. He would destroy Rey’s father, her mother, this shop, and the hot, dusty, scum-laced village around them. He would —

Luke, however, had sensed the dangerous anger in his nephew. He quickly and subtly used the Force to maneuver the saber from Ben’s belt and into his own hand. 

“Thank you,” he said again to the guard, before pulling his hood over his head. “Come, Ben; we haven’t time to waste here. We need to speak to others, see if we can pick up her trail.”

Ben took several deep breaths, focusing until he could feel his anger drop away from him, falling off like a heavy shroud.

When he was calm again, he nodded, and followed his uncle back into the shadows.


	9. Chapter 9

“You okay back there, little lady?”

Rey nodded, tucking her knees up and pulling her robes down to her ankles. In reality, it was freezing in here; but she didn’t want to complain. After all, the man had been kind enough to give her a free ride. 

He had noticed her small gesture, however, and, temporarily setting the ship to autopilot, he came and brought her a small blanket.

“I’m sorry; I’ve been meaning to fix the heat for some time now,” he said, as he carefully spread it over her. He was an older man, and his arthritic joints shook the slightest bit as he performed this menial task. “Most of the time it’s just ME, here, and I guess I’ve got used to the cold.”

“Don’t apologize! You’ve been so lovely to help me, sir, and I truly appreciate it.”

His gruff face uttered a smile, and he nodded, leaning against the room frame and folding his arms across his chest. 

“You’re sure, now, that you don’t want to come with me to Yavin 13? There’s two colonies there, big ones full of all kinds of people. Pretty girl like you could surely find someone, settle down, have —“

“That doesn’t really interest me, Sir,” she interrupted him gently. “I’m much more concerned with getting some work, and I know there’s always a lot of it on these trading outposts.”

He frowned, scratching his beard. “Hard labor, mostly. You’re such a little thing, miss; how are you —“

“I’m much stronger than I look,” she told him, giving him a small smile. “I figure I’ll work a few months, save up for my own ship, and then be able to go anywhere I want in the galaxy.”

The man sighed and nodded. “You’re a feisty one, but maybe that means you ARE stronger than you look.”

He turned around and went back to the cockpit, leaving Rey alone to think.

When she had first gone home to Jakku so many weeks ago, it had been wonderful. She had gone so long missing her parents that she made it a point to spend every minute possible with them. And they seemed to reciprocate their daughter’s wishes; holding her, kissing her, taking her around and introducing her to their new friends.

And they had a LOT of new friends.

Since Rey had been gone, her parents’ trade business had expanded exponentially. Instead of scavenging old defunct ships and selling their loot to others, they were now the owners of a trade shop. They had started up an open-air marketplace that they called “The Hub”, and people came from all over Jakku to do business. They would buy from their customers at low prices (but high enough to make the clients happy), then turn around and sell the purchased items for 2, 3, sometimes as much as 4 times what they’d paid for it. And it was a good place for others to come and trade with or buy from each other.

Eventually, they had made enough money to expand out and start something that had always been a dream of Rey’s father; a Cantina. Rey had stood proudly beside her parents as the machines broke ground on the land, and was present as every board and brick was set into place. 

Things were going so well, money was pouring in from multiple fronts, they had purchased a new, larger home ...

Rey had trouble, seeing exactly where and when it was, that things started to change. 

There was that time when she had been by the front booth, listening as her mother tried to negotiate a buying price for a merchant’s spice wares. Her father had called her over, and whispered into her ear, “What is he thinking right now?”

“What?”, Rey had asked, taken slightly aback.

“What is he thinking, child? Is anything worrying him, does he have anything going on at home?”

“Daddy,” she said, frowning, “It’s — it’s not right to use the Force, for something so invasive. It’s not —“

Her father had gripped her arm, hard enough to hurt her, and hissed “Is it right to help out your family? So DO it, help me and your mom out and tell me what he’s thinking about!”

So Rey reluctantly concentrated, pulling the worries out of the man’s mind. “He’s — he has a sick wife at home. She needs treatment at the city hospital and he’s desperate for money.”

Rey’s father had smiled and patted his daughter on the head, before making his way to join his wife.

“What my wife is offering you is more than a fair price, Sir. You could use that money for anything; parts for your ship, food, maybe some new dresses for your wife. How is _your_ wife doing, by the way? She usually comes here with you, doesn’t she?”

The man’s face fell, and Rey watched, feeling sickened, as tears welled up in his eyes. A few more moments and Rey’s father had managed to buy his wares for less than half of what the man had been asking. 

“That was a good deal,” Rey’s mother said excitedly, beginning to move the cans of spices. “Let’s put these off in the back; those ladies who come from Kamino are always looking for these kinds of spices, they’ll pay a fortune to have these.”

That’s where it started, but it’s not where it ended. 

From then on, Rey’s parents kept her beside them at the front negotiating booth at all times, using their daughter’s gift to get the upper edge on their customers. When really heavy items came through that would have required laborers to move, her father would have Rey lift the item in question with her mind, much to her chagrin. The people would stare in awe, making her feel rather like a freak-act.

By the time the Cantina was fully functioning, her parents had wanted her to act as security detail, and route out possible trouble-makers with her ‘magic’, as they called it; but Rey put her foot down on this. She insisted her parents hire REAL security, even bringing one man home with her to get the process started.

Days passed, and Rey grew more and more miserable with her situation. As hard as it was for her to admit, she had come to terms with the fact that her parents were using her, to further their own financial gains. But she hadn’t known what to do; she didn’t think she could go back to the Jedi temple, not after what Ben had said to her, and she had no credits of her own to get away.

And then one night, the dream happened.

This dream had been so vivid, so _real_ that, upon waking, she had had a rather difficult time convincing herself that she hadn’t gone insane.

In it, she was back at the Jedi academy, standing by the lake. The sun was brilliant and beautiful, bathing the surrounding area with a flood of warmth and colors. She had looked down at herself, and was surprised that she was wearing a dress. Silky-light and intricately detailed, it clung to her body in all the right places, accentuating her soft curves. Her hair had been pulled up in a large, braided bun, with wisps of loose hair hanging about her face. She had been so focused on the dress that at first she hadn’t noticed the light pressure on her hand, as somebody else’s fingers laced with her own. 

Ben.

The entire time she had been away from the Temple in the real world, she had made the conscious effort to NOT think about the tall, dark-haired boy that had stolen her heart. To think of him, even for a few seconds, was painful; because try as she might to believe otherwise, the truth was, she MISSED him. The truth was, Ben was the other half of her, the second collective of a much larger soul, and to be without him left her feeling broken, terribly broken, in the deepest reaches of her spirit. 

But here he was, in her dream.

She didn’t know how long he had been standing beside her in this ethereal world, but, once their hands joined, it felt like he had been there forever. Every molecule in her body felt alive, as if she were on fire, and instinct prompted her to lean up and kiss Ben’s lips. 

So she did.

And once she had, the cosmic energy of the galaxy, maybe of the entire universe, had hit her in full force. They, she and Ben, were **meant** to be with each other. They were meant to hold hands and walk together through life, no matter the consequences. It wasn’t a choice, and it never had been: it was _destiny_.

She had woken up quickly after that, sweating, breathing hard. Although it was the middle of the night, she had gotten dressed and gone into her parents’ bedroom, to wake them.

“Mom? Dad?”

Her mother had stirred first, her eyes fluttering open. Her expression was one of irritation.

“What is it, Rey?”

“I’m leaving.”

By now her father was awake, too, and he sat up upon hearing his daughter’s words.

“Leaving? To where?”

“I’m going back to the Jedi academy. I need to be with Ben.”

Her mother got out of bed and put a hard hand on Rey’s shoulder, digging her nails painfully into her sensitive flesh.

“Go back to bed, child. We have three large shipments coming in the morning, you need your rest. All of this is just nonsense, and it’ll pass when the sun rises.”

Rey shook her mother’s hand off, saying, “It’s not nonsense. I love him, mother. We’re meant to be with each other.”

Now Rey’s father had crossed the floor to them, and he spoke slowly, cruelly to his only child:

“Isn’t it enough, that you were his whore once? Do you have any idea who Ben IS, child? He comes from great power. His grandfather, his mother, his uncle — he is a SKYWALKER. What purpose could he have with you? You’re nothing, child. You’re a rat from the desert, an insolent child, an ungrateful brat. You think to leave us, your FAMILY, to go to him?”

“Remember what you told me, sweetheart, the day you came home? You told me that boy told you he wanted nothing more to do with you. Believe that, child. He didn’t love you. The only reason someone like him would seek you out would be to satisfy his physical urges. That’s _all_. Nothing more. Better you stay here, with your family that loves you.”

Rey stood stock-still, but inside, she was shaking. She was shaking so hard she was sure that the ground beneath her was shaking as well. 

“You speak to me about _love_!?”, Rey questioned, hardly aware that she was now shouting. “Neither of you loves me! You think of me as one of your possessions ... but I’m NOT. And you may be right; maybe Ben doesn’t love me. Maybe he never did. Maybe YOU never really did, either. But you know what? I love myself!! I’m a GOOD person, and I deserve better than all three of you!”

She turned around and ran from the room, out of the house, and didn’t look back. Still, she could hear her parents voice behind her, almost ghostly in its quality: 

“She’ll be back.”

_No I won’t, mother. No, I won’t._

And here she was now, on a freighter headed towards a trade outpost, looking to begin the next phase of her life.

—-

_“Are you scared of storms?”, he had asked her, curiously. The lightning was difficult to see, considering all that made it through the thick walls were erratic flashes seen through the chinks in the door; but the thunder was definitely felt. It boomed and shook the ground._

_”No, I’m not,” Rey insisted, red-faced. She was about to argue her point further, when an unexpectedly loud clap of thunder interrupted her, causing her to involuntarily jump._

_She had waited, looking miserable, for Ben to begin teasing her about it. But no such thing came. Instead, Ben had cleared his throat, and, speaking earnestly, confessed:_

_“You know, I’m not too comfortable with the dark. Pitch-dark, I mean. You’ve probably noticed the way I always keep at least one candle lit, even when you’re with me.”_

_“Why are you telling me this?”_

_“I’m just want you to know, that it’s ok that something scares you. The dark scares me. So do Ewoks.”_

_”Ewoks? Really?”_

_Ben nodded. “Yeah. When I was still a baby, my parents would sometimes take us on trips to Endor, to see Wicket, the leader of the Ewok tribe there. Once they left me alone with some of Wicket’s younger family members, and they started to crawl all over me, licking and pulling at my skin. It’s one of the earliest memories I have, actually. Mom says that’s how young Ewoks familiarize themselves with newcomers, but I don’t believe that. I think they were going to eat me.”_

_Rey smiled and took Ben’s hand into her own, squeezing it tightly._

_“Thank you for telling me that; I feel much better now. You know I love you, right?”_

_“I know. You know that everyone would say that we’re both too young to know what love actually is, right?”_

_“I know. But I love you anyway.”, Rey replied, leaning against him._

_”Good. I love you too,” Ben told her, smiling before kissing the top of her head._

_The rain outside was slamming against the walls of the hut now, and the blue-white flashes of lightning seemed more and more frequent._

_”I really don’t want you going out in this,” Ben murmured, sounding worried. “I think, my dear, you should stay with me.”_

Ben sat in his hut, staring blankly at the wall in front of him, running his tongue over his dry, cracked lips. The vision he had just had was nothing new; he had been having them for weeks, now. He would be sitting, and thinking of nothing in particular, when suddenly, a memory of something he had done with Rey would start playing before his eyes, like a holo-recording. 

What he had just seen had, mercifully, ended before it had gotten to the rest of that night: the first time Ben and Rey had ...

But no, no, he couldn’t allow himself to think into that, not even for a second. It was painful, in every way imaginable.

Ben and his uncle had spent a little over 3 months, searching for Rey. They had tried everywhere that either man could possibly think of; every planet, big or small, every dusky Cantina, every market, every city hospital. They had spoken to what must have been thousands of people, humans and aliens alike. Ben had in his pocket the paper-holopic of him and Rey at his mother’s charity dance, the one in which Rey had kissed his cheek, and he would hold this out to countless individuals, hoping against hope that somebody, _anybody_ , would have seen her.

Still, nothing.

She wasn’t dead; Ben knew that in his heart, he would be able to feel if anything truly awful had happened to her. She was alive, but she was hidden.

And Ben couldn’t really blame her; after how her parents had treated her, after the cruel words Ben himself had spoken to her, why would she want to be found?

Eventually, Luke gently but firmly told him that it was time to return to the Temple.

“We’ve done everything that we could possibly do, Ben,” he had said, putting a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “If it’s truly meant to be, she’ll find her way back to us, on her own accord.”

Ben hadn’t quite agreed with this, but had nevertheless followed his uncle back home. He was physically and mentally exhausted, and holding on by just a hair, emotionally.

The Temple had changed quite a bit in their absence, especially since Luke and his fellow instructors had instituted what they called the Open-Arms policy. They now had twice as many students as before, those who had exhibited Force-aptitude in the past but feared coming to the Temple out of doubt that they had what it took to be a proper Jedi. Everything was expanded; the huts, the classrooms in the Temple, the food supply ...

And several older students had now been made instructors, helping to teach the younger students all that they knew.

“Pass on what you have learned,” Luke would say, frequently, to his new teachers. “My Master Yoda always said that this is one of the most important aspects of life: passing on what you have learned.”

Ben found himself grateful for the changes, for the newness. The constant bustle and busyness kept him occupied and focused, kept his mind on something other than his failure to find Rey.

But sometimes, when it was quiet, when it was late, or when it was a day of rest like it was today —

Ben licked the tip of his quill and began writing another letter on the old parchment paper.

**Dear Rey,**

**Yesterday one of my students, a new little girl, came up to me and began talking about a dream she had had, a bad one. I told her that bad dreams are a common part of life, and we just need to learn to tune them out and focus on the positives of reality.**

**I felt like such a hypocrite, because I myself have not been able to tune out my bad dreams. Every single day without you feels like a bad dream, a horrible, hellish nightmare from which there is no waking. The mornings are especially cruel; I’ll lay on my pallet, in the blurred realm between dreams and wakefulness, and suddenly ill FEEL your soft arms go around me, like they used to. I’ll feel your arms, I’ll smell your intoxicating scent, and the flutter of your luscious hair against my cheek. Then I’ll open my eyes and you disappear again, taking any semblance of happiness with you.**

**I wish you would come back. I know I don’t deserve it, but I wish you’d give me a chance, an opportunity to tell you what an idiot I’ve been, how I’d give up everything just to have you beside me. I wish that, but in my heart, I know it won’t happen. I don’t deserve that.**

**I hope that someday, somehow, this letter, and all of the others I’ve written for you, will find its way into your hands. So that you can know how magnificent you are, and how sorry I am, for letting you go. Please, please, forgive me.**

**I love you,**   
**Ben.**

—-

Han Solo closed his eyes and leaned back, his head resting on the scratchy, yet oddly comfortable, pillow. For once, the Falcon was mostly silent, the only sounds that of the engines humming through the stars, and the low whispers of the characters in one of the holo-dramas speaking to one another. Han himself wasn’t particularly into watching holos, but putting them on before bed reminded him of being home with his wife. This newest haul had taken him clear across the galaxy, and was possibly the longest he had been away from Leia before.

Normally he would have Chewbacca to make the journey less lonely, but more and more, the old Wookiee preferred to stay with his own family in Kashyyyk. Han couldn’t fault him for that; being in the arms of loved ones was infinitely better than these cold trips to the colder outpost stations.

A brief, clunky whirring noise caught his attention, and he turned on his side, facing the wall and sighing. That sound was getting worse all the time, made more frustrating by the fact that he knew exactly what it was, but was unable to fix it. The part needed to repair that bit of the lower engines was vastly expensive, and right now Han simply didn’t have the time or the funds to deal with it. In fact, SEVERAL items on this ship could do with an extensive amount of upgrading or replacement.

Rather than focus on that, though, he began to think about the other part of his life that was out of sorts: Ben.

Every time that Han received a communication from his distraught son, he hoped that THAT would be the happy message, the news that he and Luke had located Rey. But each message served to break Han’s heart, as they couldn’t locate the girl. Ben had asked Han to keep an eye out during his travels, but so far Han hadn’t any good news to report.

He wished he did.  
He wished he could FIX this.

Han knew that when Ben was growing up, he and his wife had neglected to give him the amount of time and attention that he’d desperately needed. Han always seemed to be away on hauls, and Leia busy with her senate work. Han wished now that he would have slowed down, or had been come with him on these trips rather than leave him at home. Maybe if that had been the case, they would have a better bond. Maybe Ben would want to spend time with him now, rather than looking pained anytime Han so much as asked him to join him for a drink.

Maybe if Han could just step up, and fix this mess in Ben’s life, things would be different between them.

Maybe.

—-

“That’s about it,” Han said, stretching out his back. “100 cases at 7 credits a crate, 700 credits.”

The man counted the money out of his wallet, once, twice, carefully.

“Thank you,” he’d said, once Han had pocketed the money. “You got here much faster than I expected; I hope to do business with you in the future.”

Han nodded and pulled a small card from his pocket. “All my information is on there, should you wish to contact me again. Have a good one.”

Han turner and began walking back to the ship. His back was killing him, after having helped the crew unload the merchandise ... he thought maybe a nap should be in order before he took off for home. This outpost was by far one of the bleakest places he had ever seen before, filled to the brim with vagrants, shifty types, a few shady-looking restaurants, and, of course, a Cantina. 

“No matter how bad things get, Cantinas will never go out of business,” he said softly to himself, a small smile on his face. He decided that the nap could wait, while he went and got himself a drink.

He pushed open the heavy doors and squinted against the smoke as he strode to the bar. He groaned as he sat on the rickety stool, and signaled the barkeep.

“Whiskey, please,” he said, watching as the man poured him a generous shot. He downed it quickly and ordered another, as he shifted slightly to look at the other patrons.

3 men sat at a card table in a dingy corner, playing what looked like a spirited game of Sabbac. There was a brightly lit stage on which sat a piano player and a non-human woman, large and green, crooning out what Han took to be a lullaby of some kind. More sat at the bar beside him, and others spread throughout the room, talking and raucously laughing.

One person, though, caught Han’s eye more than the others. It was what appeared to be a woman, short in stature, with long brown hair tied into a single braid that swung down her back. She was wearing the frumpy, ill-fitting blue and white uniform that the employees of the Cantina had, and in her small hands was a container. She circled around and around the room, collecting empty glasses and finished food plates, her head down and her eyes kept focused on her feet.

When she got to Han, she reached for his two empty glasses, and happened to look up. She froze, upon seeing his face.

Both were quiet for the longest time, staring at each other; and then Han broke the silence by saying, softly,

“Rey?”


	10. Chapter 10

“You want another one, friend?” 

Han nodded, keeping his eyes on the waiter as he watched him walk to the back to bring him another drink. Beside him sat Rey, practically buried in the large tray of appetizers he had ordered for her. He looked tactfully away as she put the food into herself, her near-starvation killing off the majority of her table manners. When the waiter came back out, he asked him to prepare another tray of food, this one desserts. The man gave him an odd look, but shrugged and went to do as he requested. 

When Han had first seen the long-looked for object of his son’s love, it had appeared as though she would run. In a crowded Cantina, in the middle of working, she had immediately shifted her body away from him and planted one foot outward, as if to gain traction. Her tray containing the dirty cups and plates was raised slightly out from her, as if she intended to hit him over the head with it. 

When Han had been a much younger man, working on these hauls, there had been a time when he was just barely making enough money to stay financially afloat. He’d had no money for buying food or drink, so he and Chewbacca would have to hunt their meals. From those experiences he’d learned how to approach a wild animal cautiously, how to ease it into being comfortable around him, taking it off-guard, while Chewie went in for the kill. 

The situation now was slightly different; he didn’t have Chewbacca to help him out, and he just wanted to talk to Rey, not trap her. 

“It’s okay,” he’d said, in a low, soothing voice. “It’s alright, please don’t go; I just want to talk to you.” 

Her thin arms trembling, she lowered the tray just the tiniest bit, and said, “What are you even doing here?!” 

He explained to her about the haul he had just made, and how he had stopped in for a drink before going home. 

At that moment, the large creature behind the bar yelled something at Rey, and she flinched, quickly straightening up. 

“Gotta go; my boss is watching.” 

“When is your shift over?” 

“About an hour.” 

“When you’re done, please, come and talk to me. I’ll meet you in that diner across the road. I’ll buy us some food, and we can talk. Just talk. Okay?” 

The man behind the bar yelled again, and Rey started to walk away from Han. “An hour,” she said over her shoulder. 

Here they were now, and Han couldn’t help but see the changes in the girl. She was noticeably thinner, and her once-shining hair had taken on a dull, dead listlessness. Large dark circles bloomed under her eyelids, and she had a small, permanent shake to her, as if she just couldn’t seem to get warm. When Han questioned her, she explained that she worked several jobs at this outpost, and didn’t get a lot of sleep. 

Clearly she didn’t make enough from ANY job to properly eat, either; but Han didn’t say this to her. 

As they waited for the rest of the food to come out, Rey began to talk to him, slowly, telling him what had happened with her parents. He listened thoughtfully, nodding every now and again, his stoic face just barely able to cloak the utter heartbreak he felt at her words. 

“I guess ... when it comes down to it, Han, not everybody in the galaxy is meant to be loved, you know?”, she observed, taking a sip of her drink. “And maybe it’s better that way. Love is a distraction, after all. Prevents you from achieving your highest potential, as Master Luke used to say.” 

Han shook his head and ordered another beer. 

“I’ve known Luke for a long time, Rey. A long, long time. And I respect his opinion on a lot of things ... but not on that. Because he’s wrong. Love is, the greatest thing in the universe. Without it, nothing would matter.” 

“Han —“ 

“And you’re wrong too, you know. You ARE loved. By my son.” 

Rey’s face hardened, and she turned away, taking a longer pull on her drink. 

“Your son told me not to come back, Han. I tried to say goodbye to him, and he wouldn’t even look me in the face. THAT’S how much your son loves me.” 

Han was silent for a long while, running his fingers over his stubbled facial hair; it had been a while since he’d shaved. 

“Ben ... he’s a lot like me, you know,” he said after awhile, slowly. “Good at identifying things that might be painful, and then doing everything he can to cushion that pain. Your leaving was painful to him; I’d wager it’s the most painful thing he’d ever experienced in his life. So he ... I’m guessing he put up a wall, to shield himself from that hurt. A completely idiotic thing to do, maybe ... but the only thing he felt he COULD do.” 

Rey sat quietly, munching on what remained of her food, thinking over Han’s words. Han watched her for a few moments, and suddenly, an idea presented itself to him. 

“Come with me,” Han said, standing. 

“What?” 

“Come with me. Come work with me, kid.” 

Rey shook her head in disbelief. “You’re ... you’re not fooling me, Han. You say that, and the next thing I know, I’m trapped on the Falcon and you’re speeding me to Ben.” 

Han took her hands, and couldn’t help but wince, as he did so. Her once-soft hands had become hard and brittle, and Han could feel the healing scars of many different cuts and bruises. Had she been doing hard labor, as well? Pushing the thought from his mind, he began speaking slowly, earnestly. 

“Rey, you have my word, on the lives of my wife and son, that I wouldn’t do that to you. I promise I wouldn’t. But you ... you don’t belong here, honey. You don’t. Ben is my only child, you know, but I think that if Leia and I had had a daughter too ... well, she couldn’t be any better than you. Come with me.” 

“Han —“ 

“You’re smart, you’re careful, you’re strong ... you can join me here, on my transports. I can’t pay much, but it would be more than this place. And you would be properly fed, and have a decent place to sleep. You’d get to see some pretty exotic places, too; worlds that you couldn’t even dream of.” 

Rey was quiet for a while, struggling to keep her eyes from welling with tears, at Han’s words. She could feel the sincerity pouring out of him, could feel how he’d really meant it, when he likened her to a daughter. 

“What about when you’re not making hauls?”, she asked, quietly. “What about when you’re home. Then what?” 

“Then you’re home with me and Leia. I know my wife, I know she would be thrilled to have you there with us.” 

“And Ben?” 

“Ben ... will have difficulty with the situation, I’m sure. But I know he would respect your wishes, if I told him to keep his distance, until you’re ready to talk to him. At any rate, he would be relieved, to finally know where you are, and that you’re safe.” 

“That I’m safe?”, she muttered to herself. “Does he really care THAT much?” 

Han heard her, and nodded. “He does. He does, I do, Luke does, Leia does.” 

She didn’t respond, but Han could see tears welling up in her eyes. 

“Please, just give it a try. Just for a couple of months, anyway; and if you decide you don’t like it, I’ll bring you back here, or anywhere else you want to go, no questions asked. Okay?” 

He held out his hand to her, a hopeful smile on his face. 

\---

“Good, good — no. Control your fear, Zed, control it. See everything as being connected, not separate entities. You and your saber are one in the same, you’re bonded. You’re not controlling it, it doesn’t control you. Work together.” 

Zed took a deep breath, and did as Ben said. After a few clumsy strikes to the moving practice target, his blows became slower, more focused, and extremely accurate. The green contact light lit up again and again for him, and he smiled, taking the opportunity to turn and playfully bow to the other students. Right away, the target dealt him a blow to the chest, and his vest lit up in bright red. 

As the other students tittered, Ben said, calmly, “Which brings me to my next point: never lose focus. Never grow arrogant, and don’t take your eyes from your opponent until you’re positive that they are no longer a threat.” 

He switched off the targets and went to Zed, untying the straps of his vest. “That’s all for today. Tomorrow we’ll be focusing on multi-person combat drills. Dismissed.” 

The other students left, and Zed, standing and waiting for Ben to finish with his straps, let out a sigh. 

“I just can’t seem to get the hang of this,” he said, his head hanging in frustration. 

Ben had removed the vest, and tucked it underneath one arm as he patted Zed’s shoulder with the other. “You’re still learning. Have confidence in yourself. Nobody expects you to be perfect, Zed. Continue having an open mind, and be diligent in your practice, and before long you’ll be as skilled a swordsman as Master Skywalker.” 

Zed looked up, hope brightening his eyes. “Do you really think so?” 

Ben nodded. “I do. Now go on, join your peers before all the food is gone.” 

Zed flashed him a smile and took off towards the mess, leaving Ben looking after him with a smile. 

When Luke had asked if he was willing to teach students that were nearly as old as himself, in addition to his Padawans, Ben had been skeptical. He had been working with young children for so long that he wasn’t positive he had it in him to do the same with older ones. But Luke had insisted that Ben was ready, and all of Ben’s doubts went away after his first class. This group was larger, around 15 students all around the 12-16 age range. Ben enjoyed the multiple new personalities that he encountered, and the chance to act a bit more ‘adult’ with his students. 

He also enjoyed the new teaching style that Luke and his fellow masters had employed. The dark side of the Force was now introduced into the current Jedi texts, and Luke and Ben, as well as the others, worked tirelessly to blend the two philosophies into one new Master text, one that recognized the importance of acknowledging one’s feelings, good AND bad, and finding a balanced way to act out between them. For Ben this was especially helpful, as he now no longer felt he was being pulled from one direction to another. His dreams didn’t plague him anymore, and he found that his conscious was a lot easier. 

He had even made peace, of sorts, with Ziir. The two accepted that, while they didn’t particularly like one another, it was important that the put aside their respective differences in order to provide a better educational environment to their pupils. Ziir himself was an instructor now, teaching a group of younglings between the ages of 5 and 12, and Ben would often give him tips on how to plan and structure his daily lessons. 

Only one thing was keeping his life from being near-perfect: Rey. 

Or rather, her absence. 

When his father had visited last month to inform him that he had found Rey, Ben had nearly fainted, so overwhelmed he was with joy and relief. 

“Where is she?!”, he’d shouted, starting to run towards the ship. “You have to take me to her!” 

Han caught up with his son and put a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. 

“She’s at home with mom. Ben ... we need to talk about that.” 

And talk they did. Ben was surprised that Rey had agreed to work with Han ... but at the same time, he was confident that with Han, Rey was in good hands. What he _wasn’t_ surprised to hear was that Rey still wasn’t ready to face him, or even speak with him via holo. 

Yet just knowing where she was, knowing that she was safe, gave him better sleep than he’d had since before she left. And, from the updates his father gave him, Rey seemed to be adjusting fairly well to life with the Solos. Her company kept Han from being lonely on his hauls, and when they were back home, Leia was happy to have the girl with her, and was finally able to do all of the ‘girly’ things that she couldn’t do with her son. 

So Ben respected Rey’s wish, and stayed away. He didn’t attempt to contact her, either, although sometimes the urge to do so was overwhelming. Rey DID have several calls with Luke, and Ben would find a way to stay hidden in the shadows, just so he could hear her voice. 

It was difficult, but in his heart he knew that things would eventually work themselves out. They were meant to be together, and destiny HAD to be stronger than any ill feelings that Rey might still have towards him. 

It simply HAD to be. 

\--- 

One day Ben decided to put in a call to his father on the Falcon. Ben was aware that his mother’s birthday was approaching, but was (embarrassingly) unsure as to the exact date. And Luke was unavailable to speak to, as he had gone on a trip with a new group of younglings to pick kyber crystals. He figured his father would answer … 

… but he nearly dropped the holo-sender, started and flabbergasted, when Rey unexpectedly picked up the call instead. 

They stared at each other, and then Ben said, nervously, 

“I’m sorry. I — I thought my dad would — I didn’t know —“ 

A pause, and then: “Han is inside the house. I’m cleaning out the Falcon.” 

Ben frowned, stepping closer and folding his arms in front of his chest. 

“Cleaning the Falcon? And my dad isn’t helping?” 

“Well, he WAS ... but your father is rather a hoarder, I’m afraid. Thinks that we need to keep everything. I said it’d be less painful for him if I just did it myself.” 

Ben laughed, stepping a bit closer. He couldn’t believe this, he couldn’t believe that the two of them were having an actual conversation. He wanted to ask so many things, to SAY so many things to her, but he couldn’t. It was all he could do to maintain eye contact with her. 

“Dad’s been telling me a little, about your trips. He says you make a better co-pilot than Chewie. Is he treating you alright?” 

She smiled, a full, radiant smile. “Better than alright. He even lets me pilot alone, sometimes. Can you believe that?” 

Ben chuckled and nodded. “I can, actually. You’re probably a safe, skilled driver. He NEVER let me pilot the Falcon, not one single time.” 

“Well he likely saw how reckless you are with a speeder, Ben, and knew that his ship wouldn’t be able to take that kind of excitement.” 

The way she had said that, with a glimmer of the teasing that they had engaged in before, put a faint spark of hope in Ben’s chest. He decided to take the opportunity to slowly bring about a different topic. 

“So … I don’t know how up to date mom and dad have kept you, about the Academy, here. But things have changed. They’ve changed SO much, Rey, that it’s like a different universe, here.” 

“Yes, Luke told me, actually” she said, looking down. “That must be nice for you, the idea you can now have a girlfriend that won’t have to be kept a secret.” 

A pause, and then: 

“Why would that be good for me? YOU’RE not here, so why would it matter, if —“ 

But that brief space of time was all it took. Rey closed up again, like the sun going behind a cloud. 

“I have to go, Ben.” 

He nodded, backing away. “Okay. I ... um ... well ... it was so good, to —“ 

But she cut off the transmission before he’d had a chance to finish his thought. 

\--- 

Ben sat nervously on the little bench by the podium, trying his hardest not to fidget. The smell of food wafting in from the dining area served to irritate his already-nervous stomach, and he prayed that he wasn’t sweating too hard. He had gone to a lot of effort to make himself look as calm, cool, and put-together as possible, and a hard sweat had the potential to ruin all his prep work. 

He was also having a hard time with believing that this was all real. 

After his unexpected call with Rey several weeks ago, Ben had not been able to get her out of his mind. He knew that she was still upset, but he also knew (or rather, he felt) that deep down, Rey missed him as much as he missed her. So, after gathering his nerve, he called again, this time asking his father directly to put Rey on. After some awkward small-talk, he dove into the heart of the matter: 

“Luke is having me go and pick up the food supply from Lothal tomorrow. I asked Han and he said you both don’t have any hauls tomorrow. I ... well, I thought maybe you’d like to meet me there? I thought maybe we could grab something to eat, talk a little? “ 

He held his breath waiting for the answer, and felt that he might faint with joy when she nodded and said “Alright. Send me the coordinates.” 

Now it was finally time, and Ben sat anxiously waiting for her to arrive. But .. what if she wasn’t coming? What if she changed her mind? He sighed, then checked his reflection in the glass mirror above the podium, and smoothed back his hair. 

He could feel her energy, the pull of the light, long before he saw her. He took several deep, calming breaths through his nose and let it out through his mouth, fruitlessly trying to slow the slamming of his heart, before she finally made her appearance. 

They stood and stared at each other for a few moments; then Ben said, in a soft voice, 

“You came. I wasn’t sure you would.” 

He made no move to approach her, for fear of scaring her away. So he was more than a bit surprised when she approached him, instead, stopping when she was just inches away from him. Then, he asked her, his voice trembling, 

“If I wanted to hug you, would that be okay?” 

She nodded. 

Ben meant to put his arms around her, but he felt frozen in place. So instead, he awkwardly held out his arms, ... and all but melted, when Rey went into them. He held her tightly yet gently, basking in her warmth, inhaling the sweet flowery scent from her hair. Although he was lightyears away from it, with Rey in his arms, he felt like he had come home. He could have stood there holding her for an eternity, while everything disappeared around them ... but he knew that he couldn’t act too overly-eager, lest he put her off. So he slowly, reluctantly separated himself. 

“Well,” he said, as they pulled apart, “I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly hungry. Shall we have dinner?” 

Rey nodded, and Ben put his hand on the small of her back, guiding her forward. Although this was a public restaurant, he had pre-tipped the host enough to seat them at the most secluded table, perched by itself on a small raised platform in the corner. 

He pulled out her chair for her, then took his own seat as their waitress came up. He nodded to Rey to indicate that she should take Rey’s drink order first, and when she got to him, he asked for a glass of water, as well as a sampler of appetizers. If it was one definite thing he knew about Rey, it was that the lady could EAT. 

He couldn’t get over how surreal this was. To be in the same space as her, to be sitting across from her. He had had many dreams like this in the past year, and he found himself a bit scared, that this encounter was just another rumbling in his imagination. 

“You look really beautiful tonight,” he told her as he sipped his water. “Even lovelier than I’d remembered.” 

And she did. She was wearing a black and gray wrap dress, with turquoise accents at the collar and fringes. Her hair was pulled back and divided into two parts; the top being a loose bun, the bottom wispy curls. The excitement of seeing him had lent a charming petal-pink tint to her cheeks, and her eyes were bright and shining. 

She looked down into her own glass of punch, a small smile teasing the corners of her full lips. 

“Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself, Ben. But when did THIS happen?”, she asked, reaching towards him and gesturing to his (new) light facial hair. 

“Oh! I’ve been trying to grow a beard. You don’t ... do you think it looks stupid?” 

She shook her head and took a sip of her water. “No, actually I think it makes you look distinguished. Rather like LUKE, really.” 

Ben made a face and said, teasingly, “Like Luke? Maker, now I really DO have to get rid of it!” 

Rey laughed at that, and his joke helped to ease off the majority of her remaining tension. She visibly relaxed her posture, and loosened the tight set of her shoulders. She perked up even more once the appetizers came out. 

He sat quietly as she ate, making light commentary on the day, the restaurant, the food ... but the entire time, he was terrified. He wasn’t sure how he was going to handle the inevitable end of the evening, he didn’t think he would be able to stand watching her get back on the Falcon and fly away from him. 

When the main course came out, he picked up his fork and absently pushed food around his plate. She was telling an amusing story now about a recent haul she and Han had gone on, but Ben was just barely listening, his mind preoccupied with other things. 

_I’m much bigger than she is_ , he thought to himself as he sipped his water. _Why couldn’t I just pick her up, put her on MY ship, and take her back with me? She’d be mad at first but after awhile, after talking to Luke, I’m sure she’d calm down. And honestly it wouldn’t be much different than how she was brought to the academy in the first place, and look how THAT eventually turned out._

“ ... and then one of the rathtars got loose in the cargo hold, and it chewed right through the wiring for the hyperdrive. I told Han that ...” 

_No,_ he thought to himself sadly, as he half-listened to her story. _You can’t force her to want to come back with you, or to be with you. It wouldn’t be love then. And how can you take her away from mom and dad? Dad looks happier than I’ve seen him in YEARS, and I know mom is grateful to finally have a child that’s not such a difficult mess, like I was._

The thought caused a painful lump to swell in his throat, and he picked up his water glass and chugged half of it, in an attempt to swallow the hurt down. 

“Ben? Are you alright?” 

He snapped himself out of his thoughts and put his water glass down, looking at her. 

“I’m fine. Go on; what happened after the rathtars chewed through the wires?” 

\---

“I had a very lovely time with you, Ben.” 

It was about an hour later (Ben had kept the food coming, including more appetizers and a heavy round of dessert, in an attempt to keep her with him longer. Eventually even Rey couldn’t eat any more, and Ben had to reluctantly concede that the evening was over), and the two were making their goodbyes to one another. 

“I did with you, as well. Thank you for joining me, I appreciate it.” 

She nodded, looking down at her feet. “Please ... tell Luke I said hello.” 

“I will.” 

She hesitated, then leaned up, put her arms around his shoulders, and gently kissed his cheek. 

“Goodbye,” she said, and turned to walk to her ship. Something in him, seeing Rey walking away, broke. He reached out and grabbed her arm, holding her back. 

“Wait!” 

She turned back to face him. “Yes?” 

He quickly ran into his ship, and came back out with a small leather-bound journal. 

“I wasn’t ... I didn’t know whether to give this to you, or not. But I’m going to. I need you to ... Rey I want you to ...” 

“W-what is it?” 

“Letters. Short stories. Poems. All to you. I’ve written at least one thing a day, every day, since you left. I just ... please, someday, read them. Know how sorry I am, for what I said the day you left. If I could take it back, if I could take any of it back ...” 

She nodded, biting her lip to prevent the tears from falling, and tucked the journal away into her pocket. 

“You ... Ben ... “ 

She paused. She didn’t know how to finish it, how to begin getting out what she was feeling. _I trusted my parents, too,I trusted that they loved me and genuinely wanted me in their lives, and they didn’t. I thought I would die, those first few days on the outpost. Thinking that there was no place in the entire galaxy I could do, where I would be wanted. And then Han showed up and saved me. He saved me, and I can’t ever repay that. I love him like he was my own father, and Leia like my mother, but I’m not ready for that other thing yet. I’m not ready to trust you again, Ben. I’m just not. The look on your face, that cold blankness when you told me not to come back, haunts me. It still haunts me today. I may still love you, but …_ The only thing she could think to do, was reach out and wipe away the tear that had escaped him and was tumbling down his cheek. 

Then she turned and quickly got on the Falcon, taking off into the dark sky and leaving Ben staring after her, more tears having escaped his grasp. 

\---

Weeks later, and Rey and Ben had no contact after that last outing. Ben didn’t even try to call her via holo anymore, as he feared he would come across as too desperate. Ben hated to admit it, but his head was telling him that it was time to move on. One evening, after classes, he sat in front of his hut and watched some of the other students coming back from meditations with Luke. Among this new large group of students, there were several young ladies, ones that were around his age. He watched a trio of them laughing and joking on their way to their huts. 

“Rey isn’t the only woman in the galaxy,” he muttered to himself, taking a sip of water. “If she doesn’t want you, Ben, its time to find someone that does.”

He stood up and made his way over to one of the girls, a taller one with long yellow hair.

“Good evening, Mari,” he said, trying to make himself sound pleasant. The two with her looked at her jealously; for some reason that he didn’t understand, the new girls at this school found him attractive. He could read it in their thoughts all the time, during lessons and meditations and group meals, and decided to use that to his advantage now. “How are you today?”

“I’m well, Master Solo,” she said, blushing a little. “How are you?”

“I’m well. I just wanted to tell you, I was watching earlier, when you were engaging in lightsaber drills with the others in your class. It’s really impressive, the way you handle your saber. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a student develop as fast a connection with their sword as you have.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that! I was worried that I’ve been doing it all wrong, that I’m too clumsy.”

“If you want to see clumsy, you should have seen me when I first started with my saber; I looked like a Wampa dancing with a stick.”

She burst into soft, pleasant laughter; but as he watched her laugh, something in his heart sank.

Mari was pretty.  
Mari was intelligent.  
Mari was a good person, a kind person, and a loving person.

But Mari, wasn’t Rey.

Mari, and none of these other girls, contained even a tenth of the appeal that Rey had for him. Nobody else made him feel the way she did, and to even entertain for a moment the idea that someone else could replace her, was preposterous. 

So instead of inviting Mari to accompany him to mess for a snack, as he’d intended, he simply smiled, made his goodyes, and walked off in the direction of the forest path, leaving the girls looking after him in confusion.

“He is so strange,” Mari’s friend, Ramona, said, shaking her head. “So … so intense.”

“I know,” agreed Tamitha, nodding. “Looking at him, at his _eyes_ , it feels like he’s looking right down into your soul.”

“He IS strange, but Maker, is he CUTE,” Mari said, drawing giggles from the other two.

Ben, meanwhile, was heading to his old spot up on the cliff, to sit and meditate. He reached the top and looked warily over the edge, remembering the day, so long ago, when …

“Are you going to jump?” 

Heart thudding, taking all the time allowed, Ben turned around slowly. 

She was there, sitting at the base of the old tree, her knees drawn up to her chest against the chill in the air. Had he gone insane? Was he stark raving mad?

It took him a solid few moments to remember what she had asked, but once he did, he cleared his throat and, steadying his voice, said, 

“No. Of course not. I was just admiring the view.” 

With a trembling grin, she got to her feet and walked towards him, saying, “Really? I want to see.” 

As she went past him, he timidly reached out to grab her wrist and pull her back. The electricity of the touch nearly felled them both. 

“T-that’s dangerous,” he said, still holding on. 

They stood looking at one another in the moonlight, each lost in the other’s eyes. Ben could feel that tears had managed to escape his lids, but to brush them away would mean letting go of Rey’s wrist, and he couldn’t do that. 

“Rey, I’m so —“ 

She reached up and put a finger to his lips, both silencing him and causing another of those almost-painful tingles. 

“No. You’ve apologized beyond what anyone would expect of you. I’M sorry, Ben. I ... I read the letters, you wrote me. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you halfway. I’m sorry that we’ve spent all this time apart from each other. I’m just so sorry. Please, accept my apology.” 

His tears were coming harder now, and she had started to cry, as well. Sniffling, he gave her a watery grin, and said, 

“I’ll accept on one condition.” 

“Which is?” 

“You let me hug you.” 

“That sounds reasonable, but I have a condition to your condition.” 

“Which is?” 

“I let you hug me, and you let me kiss you. Deal?” 

He answered by pulling her close and enclosing her tightly in his warm, strong arms. For the first time in nearly a year, he felt completely balanced. Even stronger than when they’d met at the restaurant. As if he was exactly where he needed and wanted to be in the universe. It was an eternity before he could let her go, during which she took the opportunity to lean up and kiss his lips. 

“So,” he said after a while, huskily clearing his throat. “Remember when I told you how Luke’s made a lot of changes around here?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“I don’t think I told you about the best change, well, the best, relatively speaking. Instead of a week off every other month, he’s instituting one large block of vacation period, altogether, during the warmer months. He did research and found that some planets do this with more traditional schooling; they call it Summer Vacation. So it would be a period of about three months, at the end of the school year. Three whole months, Rey.”

“That IS a long time. And what a coincidence; your father’s been talking about taking a break from the business during THIS summer, to spend time at home with your mother. He wants to, but doesn’t think he can afford just stop making hauls altogether. He ... he asked me, if I’d want to do it for him. Take the Falcon for three months, make his deliveries. But I said I couldn’t do it alone,” she told him, peeking slyly up at him beneath her full lashes. 

“So ... you would need a co-pilot?” 

She nodded. “I would. Someone willing to spend time alone with me, traveling to different worlds. You wouldn’t know anyone who would be interested in that, would you?” 

“I think I would, actually. A rather strange person, though; talks to himself a lot, gets very emotional over things. Oh, and a warning; he’s one of those extremely romantic types. Likes to hug and kiss a LOT.”

“I think I can handle that,” she said, putting her arms around him and kissing him again. “But what about after?”, she asked, when they parted. “After the three months, what then?”

“I don’t know, Rey. But three months is a long time, isn’t it? Enough time to figure something out, so that we can be together. But in the meantime, my dearest, why don’t you stay here with me, tonight, in my hut? For old-time’s sake, of course.”

She grinned and took his hand, allowing him to lead her down the path. “That’s a very clever ruse, Ben. Perhaps then YOU can be the one to call Han, and inform him that I’ll be returning in the morning, instead of tonight?”

“Of course.”

As they walked along, in his head praying that, when he called his father, his mother would also still be awake. He needed to talk to her … because he had a strong feeling that before the year was over, he was going to be needing that antique engagement ring of hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get this final chapter up, its Finals week and I've been running around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done. Also, THANK YOU to everyone that read this story and liked/commented on it, I truly appreciate it :-)


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